


a price most dear...

by AtoTheBean



Series: a price most dear universe [1]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: M/M, MI6 Cafe, Occult October Challenge, Post-SPECTRE, Slow Build, Slow Burn, sp00qy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-21
Updated: 2018-11-01
Packaged: 2019-08-05 11:19:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 33,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16366913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AtoTheBean/pseuds/AtoTheBean
Summary: Bond returns to the Queen's service to find Britain under threat from international arms dealers trying to stir havoc and an enigmatic Quartermaster with more hobbies than James can count.  Mysteries abound both on and off mission as his working relationship with Q deepens into something more, and the price of Duty becomes clear.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This is my entry for MI6 Cafe's 2018 Occult October challenge (aka sp00qy fic). Since last year's entry was my first 00q story, it also marks my one-year anniversary in this fandom. I've had so much fun interacting with everyone, and appreciate so much the warm welcome the MI6 Cafe provides us all.
> 
> Many, MANY thanks to Ducky and @castillion02 for the fantastic beta help. Seriously, I'm so grateful!.

 

__

 

_Some say love is a young man’s game, that only the young and foolish can risk themselves so completely. But old hearts know better. Old hearts know that most of what passes for love is mere attraction, or giddiness, or boredom. Old hearts have no time for such trifles and fall less often. But old hearts also know themselves and recognize true compatibility when they see it. Old hearts are patient and selective._

_But when they fall, they are utterly lost._

 

Bond’s heart lashes out after Vesper’s betrayal. Hot with embarrassment and rage, it shreds itself with recriminations of folly until all that’s left is a calloused leathery thing, all but impossible to pierce. And so it stays for years, with only a few shiny spots worn soft by colleagues and friends. Until Madeleine reminds it of older times, older connections, and finds a way in.

She doesn’t betray him. Not really. She just doesn’t love him. Not once she _truly_ sees him. Not once she understands that _this_ is who he is, who he’ll always be, whether on the job or not. The more they know each other, the less compatible they feel. When things end, his heart doesn’t grow hot and fierce; it grows cold…weary. He returns to the fog of London, comforted by the soft-edged familiarity, grateful that he can’t see _too_ clearly. There is a bruise where she had resided, and Bond pokes at it occasionally to feel the faint ache. To feel _something_. But in time, he stops worrying it.

Eventually, he calls M. It’s a short call, followed by a succinct conversation in M’s office that ends with a trip to HR.

Mere hours later, he’s riding an elevator down to the bowels of…well, not hell. Someplace infinitely more comforting and appealing than hell. But perhaps as secretive. Like some realm under the hill that never changes, but is somehow always current. Always changing, never changed.

Tanner leads him through the maze of surprised whispers and wide eyes until he finally sees a shock of dark curls for the first time in nearly a year. When green eyes rise to meet his, James tallies the emotions he sees — surprise, pain, distrust, exasperation — before they shutter again to a familiar, wry professionalism.

“If you’ve left that beautiful car in the bottom of a river, I’m afraid I don’t have another for you to abuse,” Q says, looking away and feigning disinterest.

Bond reaches into his pocket and tosses the keys to Q, who catches them without looking. He raises an impressed eyebrow to Tanner as Q drops them into a desk drawer, still without looking.

“This still doesn’t make up for absconding with it in the first place,” Q complains, though not with much venom. “And I’m not giving you so much as a paperclip until you’ve requalified _quam videri_.”

It’s considerably less fuss than James anticipated. “Understood, Quartermaster.”

Q turns and studies him, eyes a deep, forest green and completely unfathomable. It strikes Bond, then. Tanner is balder than when he left; M has more lines around his eyes — even Eve’s temples sparkle with a bit of silver amongst the mocha, just as his own blond is woven with grey. But Q... Q looks as young as ever.

Except for his eyes.  His eyes seem to betray a weariness of ages, as well as something of a sharp curiosity.

Bond places his hands in his pockets and allows Q’s scrutiny to wash over him. It feels different from M’s, whose assessment was calculating and opportunistic, and Tanner’s, which was imbued with relief. There’s a sad sort of warmth in Q’s eyes, but also caution. Bond wonders what he missed while he was ‘retired’, and whether that caution stems directly from his leaving or some detail of the Nine Eyes aftermath he avoided.

Where M’s and Tanner’s scrutiny chafed, James feels perfectly content to let Q’s sharp eyes take in whatever details they can. The focused attention makes him feel… almost settled. Or at least, on his way to being settled. Q’s scrutiny feels more like a homecoming than M’s office (the wrong M’s) or Tanner’s pile of familiar forms, or Alec’s bottle of very good vodka, or even the rain-streaked kerbs of London. Q will challenge him, and Bond will rise to it. Together they will do the Queen’s work. It’s enough. If that’s all that’s left of his life, he’ll do it well and be satisfied.

Q finishes his silent assessment, nods, and turns away in dismissal, moving onto the next crisis. Bond turns to Tanner, who meets his gaze and shrugs with a small smile, leading him out of the branch and down to Operations to get a new ID.

 

_Old hearts may fall hard when they fall, but they are very good at keeping their balance._


	2. Winter,  Part 1

 

 

“Are you seeing this, Q?” James asks into his martini, knowing the boffin is listening and watching the feeds of the five cameras Bond planted around the room earlier.

“At the stairs?”

“Going _up_ the stairs,” Bond corrects, crossing the room crowded with glamorous women and powerful men, all thankfully several drinks in by now. Infiltrating the party hadn’t been difficult. Setting the cameras hadn’t been difficult. But finding an excuse to go upstairs under the watchful eye of Francois Boudin proved impossible, and he hadn’t been able to set any surveillance in the family quarters on the second floor of the chateau. So, of course, that’s where the target is moving with a pair of guests. None of them looks particularly happy.

Bond surveys the elegant, very crowded room, cursing under his breath. The foyer stairs are ridiculously exposed. He’ll never climb them without 20 sets of eyes on him, and this is meant to be a stealth mission. Hastily, he grabs another drink off the tray of a passing server and makes a scene of bumping the man and spilling the drink on himself, allowing him to quickly follow the apologetic server into the kitchen to wipe himself off. He loses the man as soon as they’re through the kitchen doors and navigates through the staff area to the back stairs, climbing as the rapid clatter of keystrokes still sounds in his ear.

“I’m in,” Q says. “I have eyes on you. Go down this hall and take a right when you can. I saw them enter the third door on the left off that hallway, but there doesn’t seem to be a camera within the room. I can’t see what you’ll be walking into.”

Bond slinks down the hallway, drawing his gun as he turns the corner. “I thought you said you couldn’t hack the internal system,” he whispers.

“I said it might be traceable. It’s a sophisticated system. I can get in, but it’s complex enough I might not be able to erase all traces of my presence. If this is all about to go tits up, though, irregularities in their video access will be the least of our worries.”

That’s true. “I’ll try to make sure this doesn’t go _completely_ to shite.” He can already hear raised voices.

Then he hears a shot.

“Bond!”

“It wasn’t me. I’m not even—”

A second shot — silencer activated — sounds as he gets to the door. Three men came up here. How many are still alive?

“007—”

“Entering now.” Q thankfully goes quiet, though Bond can still hear his fingers tapping at the keyboard.

He opens the door a crack, catching a bit more of the argument, and pauses in confusion.

“Woman coming down the main hall,” Q warns quietly. “Not in a hurry. Doesn’t seem to have heard the shots.”

But James is exposed. He looks through the crack of the ajar door. Two men still standing, both facing an open crate of weapons, their backs to the door. Dipping below the line of sight, he enters the room, closes the door quietly behind him, and crosses to the far corner where he can shelter behind a mahogany desk, hidden from both the arguing men gesticulating at the crate and anyone coming through the door.

He tries to understand the argument. They are shifting between three languages, but that isn’t a problem in and of itself. James understands the individual words just fine, but the meaning is more elusive. They seem to be speaking in some sort of code, and he can only guess at parts of it. He reaches into his pocket and deploys the recording function on his phone.

The voices grow louder, loud enough that he’s tempted to ask Q if the coast is clear for him to leave when the door opens and staccato shots are fired over cries and curses. It abruptly stops, leaving his ears ringing. He glances around the desk.

“Bond, report.” Q’s usual calm is faltering.

He glances over his other shoulder to the man down by the door. “Four down. Target and two guests by the fireplace, newcomer at the door.”

“Bond, this was meant to be—”

“Quiet,” he demands, tilting his head, trying to locate the faint sound he hears now that his ears aren’t ringing. It’s not electronic...more of a hissing. Then he sees the hole in the wall by the fireplace.

Bugger.

He’s already halfway around the desk when Q insists, “Sitrep!”

“It’s not my fault.”

“Well, that’s not a promising start.”

The smell hits him as he rifles through the pockets of the first casualty, confiscating anything that might prove useful. “Q, I need you to activate the fire alarm and clear the building.”

There’s barely a pause before the keyboard clicks are fast and furious as Q asks, “Because?”

James is working the pockets of the third man now, grabbing a discarded carrier bag beside the crate and stuffing his newly acquired items inside as he explains, “It would seem a shot hit the supply line for the fireplace. Gas is filling the room.”

“Bugger.”

“Quite,” Bond answers, moving to the fourth man.

“You need to leave before I activate the alarm. The most direct route is—“

“Through the window, I think,” he interrupts, placing the last phone in the bag and dragging the strap across his shoulder.

“Ah…okay. Can you get the window open?”

Not wanting to risk shooting in a room filling with gas, he picks up the desk chair and smashes it into the window. “Yes,” he says, already climbing out and dropping to the lawn. Q issues his warning, the fire alarm blares, and the room above him explodes. The world is abruptly heat and light at his back and cold, damp darkness below his sprawled form. He shakes his head, trying to clear the ringing _again_ , and hauls himself off the dewy grass and around the corner of the house.

It’s pandemonium: guests screaming and streaming out of the estate, people inside crying for help and pushing their way out. The valet station is abandoned, so he lifts the keys for a black BMW conveniently parked in the shadows and leaves before its owner comes looking.

It’s not until he’s well away from the chateau and tries to make contact with Q again that he realizes his earpiece is missing, likely dislodged when the explosion threw him to the ground. Hopefully, the gifts in the carrier bag will counteract Q’s ire about the missing tech.

Hours later he saunters into the building with the carrier bag over his shoulder. Q’s gaze shoots up as he enters the branch, worry dissolving to irritation as he takes in Bond’s approaching form. Alec turns to watch his arrival, as well.

“You look remarkably well for someone who’s been _completely incommunicado_ for the last few hours,” Q complains. “Was there a reason you went offline?”

“Lost my earpiece, probably in the explosion.”

“And your phone?”

Bond holds up the device, showing the shattered screen. Q grimaces but seems appeased.

“I assumed you found me on CCTV since I had no issues at the border, despite being in a stolen car. There’s a recording on that phone you’ll want to extract before it goes in the bin. I couldn’t make out all of what their fight was about, but you might do better. And then there’s these,” he adds, dumping the contents of the carrier bag onto Q’s desk. “Phones off all four, and wallets off a few. And this, off the target,” he says, holding up a pendant of sorts with strange markings. Q’s face has transformed from irritation to delight.

“Looks like Christmas after all,” Alec quips, and Q flashes him a disgruntled glare.

“Yes, well. It _does_ rather look like you’ve stitched a silk purse from a sow’s ear,” Q says, studying the array of devices. “Well done, Bond. I’ll work on unlocking these _post haste_. And I was able to wipe the footage of you from their system before they locked it down, and as you noticed, adjusted the records for the car so that it wouldn’t be stopped.”

Q abruptly looks up from the materials on his desk, and James feels pinned by the gaze. He resists shifting under the scrutiny.

“I think the mission report can wait for tomorrow, all things considered. But perhaps you should be checked out by medical before you leave to ensure you’re not concussed or suffering ear damage from the explosion.”

Curse Q’s observant nature. “The ringing stopped when I was in the tunnel. I’m fin—”

“I’ll be sure to escort him before we head out for Christmas drinks,” Alec interrupts, moving around the table to James’ side.

“We’re going for drinks?” James asks.

“If you’ve forgotten, I’m inclined to agree with the Quartermaster’s assessment. We said we’d go to The Thistle before I headed out to Crimea. I fly tomorrow afternoon.”

“It got moved up?”

“You haven’t been following the news while driving, have you?”

James grimaces. “The BMW I stole had a particularly nice sound system and an attached iPod filled with exceptional music. It started playing as soon as I started the engine, and I wasn’t likely to get radio where the house was situated. I didn’t think of it later.”

“Russia is talking about oil, and cutting off European supplies as tensions in Syria and the impending trade war rise. I have my contacts, and I’m going back into deep cover.”

“So you’ll maintain your perfect record of being out of the country for the holidays,” James concludes.

“Hence, we’ll have to celebrate a bit early, per usual. I’ll throw in a kiss at midnight, too, since I won’t be back for New Year’s.”

James rolls his eyes and shoves Alec for his teasing, but Alec isn’t watching his response. He’s watching Q’s.

“Care to join us, Quartermaster? We should be there within an hour, assuming James’ head is as hard as I think it is. The Thistle has a lovely whiskey flight for those who don’t drink _real_ spirits. And live music on Saturdays.”

Q’s eyes dart from his screen and then resolutely return. A tell if James ever saw one; Q must not get many invitations. “Thank you, 006, but I think I’d best wrap up here. I’ve gathered your equipment and developed your aliases, but R is still producing the documents. They’ll be ready for you tomorrow. Enjoy your evening.”

It’s a dismissal. Q’s intense attention is once again solely on his screen.


	3. Winter, Part 2

 

__

 

_The straw-gold of the moors gleamed in the last rays of the sunset as he ran up the hill. He was late, full moon rising behind him as the last light of day disappeared ahead. If he were lucky, he’d sneak in the back kitchen door before Kincade realized he was still out, despite the old man’s warnings of will-o-wisps and moormist._

_He knew this trek like it was his own room, but the sprinkling of stars in the purple sky and the rising mist gave it an eerie, unfamiliar feel. Like he was being watched. Or hunted._

_He crested the hill, the chapel and old manor house finally visible in the distance. Relief rose and was cut short by a horse’s whinny. He spun and tripped backward, reeling onto his back as the white mare reared and snorted. Upon its back, a woman pale as water stared down at him. Her dress, the soft silver of the rising mist, streamed out behind her in the breeze as the pale gold harvest moon rose behind her. Unlike the moon, her eyes held no warmth._

_For a long moment they stared at each other; then she urged her beast forward—_

James jolts awake, heart racing as he takes in his unfamiliar surroundings. No. Not unfamiliar, just new. He scrubs a hand down his face and wills his breathing to slow as the contours of his new flat emerge from the surrounding darkness.

God, he hasn’t had that dream in years. The details are already fading, and he’s unsure if his childhood nightmare is actually based in memory, some dim story, or was only ever a dream. He feels he’s met her, but also senses that if he ever truly had, he would not have escaped her, for good or for ill.

He reaches for the glass on the nightstand, hand shaking, to find the whiskey gone. Kicking off the sheets, he walks naked to the bathroom for a drink of water. Streetlights illuminate his reflection in the mirror. It looks old and far too panicked by a dream woman on a horse. Grimacing, he splashes water on his face. It’s early. Too early, really, but he knows he won’t be falling back to sleep.

Refilling the glass, he wanders into the sitting room, sweat cooling on his skin. Mist clings to the windows, and a steady rain pelts the sidewalk outside. A run wouldn’t be very unpleasant, but he’s restless and feels almost trapped in this strange flat. True, the belongings are familiar, but it doesn’t feel like home.

So he goes to the one place that does, sad as that is.

MI6 is practically empty at half four. Twenty laps in the pool clear his mind and relax his body, and by the time he’s showered and dressed, he feels himself again, if a bit shaky from sleep deprivation.

He wanders down to Q Branch, hoping to find a bit of distraction, or maybe a stash of the biscuits or pastries the boffins are famous for having on hand. There are a few people at their stations: a few stragglers from the night shift, and a few fresher faces trying to prove their worth to their underground overlord. Q is not on the floor, meaning he can nick some biscuits and even make a cup of tea without drawing the man’s notice.

Not that Q’s notice is unwelcome. He wanders up to the boffin’s office, expecting to find it dark and shuttered. It’s not, though its owner is absent. A stack of reports teeters on the edge of the desk beside a pile of tech parts and tools. A magnifying glass mounted to the desk is focused on a row of small discs, but the potential prototypes don’t hold his attention. It’s captured instead by the worn leather book propped against the computer screen, looking anachronistic in the blue light of the monitors.

He picks it up, surprised it’s even older than he expected: pages brittle and yellow, typeface blocky and difficult to read. Thumbing through it reveals notations in the margins so faded they can scarcely be read, but the scroll is ornate and—

“Bond, what are you doing?”

James’ head snaps up to find Q glaring at him, green eyes flashing. He clears his throat. “I understand I’m heading out on mission. I thought I’d check in. I didn’t take you for a lover of poetry, Q,” he says, waving the book.

Q approaches and snatches it out of James’ hand. “I’ll thank you not to touch my things.” He seems uncommonly prickly. Then again it’s early, and Q’s known to be more of a night owl.

“Christopher Marlowe?” James asks, putting his hands in his pockets.

“He was one of the greatest poets of his time,” Q asserts, fingers tracing the raised patterns in the leather cover almost lovingly. “If his life hadn’t been cut short, he might have challenged Will Shakespeare for supremacy. Regardless, it’s nothing I have to defend to you.” He looks up and meets James’ gaze. “Come back for your tech this afternoon. Your gun is ready, but the rest of the kit is waiting on the final mission parameters.” He picks up the empty mug James left on the corner of the desk and holds it out for him. “And stop stealing my tea.”

James takes the mug with a nod, chastened. He pauses before turning to the door, watching as Q places the book safely in his courier bag.

“I’m sorry, Q. I meant no disrespect. I was just surprised. And I’m not often surprised.”

Q sighs and waves a hand. “I shouldn’t have snapped. It’s just been in my… my _family’s_ … possession for a very long time.”

“It’s not _original,_ is it? He lived in, what, the 1500s?”

“It’s not. And he did most of his writing in the 1580s and 90s. But it’s an early printing. Rather rare.” He rubs his eyes behind his glasses. “We’ll have the rest of your tech ready this afternoon, Bond, but I can offer this.” He holds out a tablet. “As I understand it, you’ll be following up with Boudin’s associate from Armenia, posing as a buyer and holed up in his luxurious compound for the weekend as he shows you his wares. The emails we’ve written on your behalf to get you an audience are on the tablet. You’ll boast having buyers lined up in South America, which should be tempting since their operation seems to be limited to Europe and North Africa at the moment. We’re hoping that during your weekend stay as their guest, you’ll be able to surveil in person. That tablet,” he continues, nodding at the device in Bond’s hand, “has what we’ve been able to piece together of the code they speak in, based on the recording you did outside Paris and the data retrieved from the phones. The good news is, you speak all three languages. So you really just need to map the new meanings to the vocabulary and you should be able to translate in real time. You might want to use the time to study it while we get the electronic surveillance devices ready.”

James grins. “You were able to make sense of it?”

“I got bits of it. But Ms. Callahan is a linguist and a coder, and she was able to get into some tor sites and see how the language is being used by various terrorist groups. Some of the phrases reference passages in religious texts, and some are just street slang, but she pieced it together and created a glossary and compendium of references and examples. It should prove illuminating.”

“And the electronic surveillance?” Bond asks. That hadn’t been included in the discussion he had with M.

“I can’t hack his system,” Q admits, scowling. “He either has the majority of it completely offline or he has a firewall even _I_ can’t chip at. Either way, I want to see what’s on the other side, and it will require you physically connecting a thumb drive to install a virus and establish a link. Since I can’t even be sure what operating system he’s using — the one machine I can see is a Mac, but it doesn’t appear to be part of his business network — I’m creating several versions to ensure you’ll have what you need.”

“If the network is that secure electronically, it may be just as secure physically. A weekend might not be enough time for me to charm my way to access of secure areas.”

Q shoots him an amused look. “I have full faith in your ability to charm your way into places you shouldn’t be. That said, it _is_ a long shot,” Q agrees, “But I want you to have the tools to take advantage if the opportunity presents itself. There are rumors that they are arming sleeper terror cells in Germany, France, and the UK. We need to nail down the contacts as soon as possible, and my usual approaches aren’t working.”

Considering what he knows of Q’s skills, that’s a grim state of affairs. “Understood. I’ll do my best.”

“And I’ll have an extraction team ready in case it’s not enough.”

Bond heads out and spends the day reviewing Q’s pad and the mission brief M provides an hour or two later. By the time he gets the text to come back to Q Branch for his equipment, he’s ready to impress Q with his knowledge of the code. But Q isn’t the one checking him out.

“He’s taking personal time,” R explains as she hands over several items of specialized equipment Q had prepared for the mission. She explains each one, and Bond is once again impressed by Q’s ingenuity and foresight.

“He will be with you on comms starting Saturday,” she assures him. “He just has a celebration of sorts tomorrow night that requires preparation.”

Bond’s brow furrows. “Still a bit early to be celebrating the holiday, isn’t it?” he asks, oddly miffed that Q isn’t the one delivering the tech he’d described that morning.

“Depends on the holiday, I suppose,” R answers, handing over the travel documents. “He’ll be back by the time you’re on the ground and with you all weekend. Don’t begrudge him time with his family. He takes little enough as it is.”

“He’s with family?” He’s always assumed Q was another MI6 orphan.

R shrugs. “He mentioned something about a reunion. I’m not sure. Maybe it’s uni friends. You know Q. He’s pretty mum about his private life. I just got the feeling that it was more an obligation than something he was looking forward to. In my experience, that means family.”

Bond snorts a laugh. “Well, I suppose I won’t hold it against him.”

“Good of you,” she says with a gleam in her dark eyes. “Now, we should both be in when you get back on Christmas Eve. Be a good lad and bring his tech back. It’ll make the best gift.”

“And myself too, I suppose?”

“Always, 007.”


	4. Winter, Part 3

 

 

The mission isn’t a disaster, but a day and a half in, it’s not much of a success, either. Bond has been wined and dined by Arshavir Saroyan, his wife, Yeghisabet, and various associates. They keep a close eye on him, escorting him from his guest room at the end of the second-floor hall to the gardens and living spaces, out to the demonstration range, and back, all the while showing off the security measures of the enterprise to impress him with the safety of partnering with them. He thinks he’s seen the locked door to the office where the business computers are likely stored, but it’s guarded, and he’s unlikely to get past. He does confirm that they have access to internet. And it would seem that the security and climate controls for the compound are computer controlled, though that is likely to be a local network only. He’s vexed that he can’t pass better information to Q as he sits alone in his room the first night. They had confiscated his phone when he arrived, but not found the satellite phone Q had built into an old aluminum iPod, so old and decrepit his host had actually laughed when he saw it: metal body, monochrome screen, no wifi capability. They’d let him keep it, just as Q knew they would, and the private satellite phone housed within it connects directly to the earpiece they also hadn’t found. As such, so long as he carries it in his pocket as he moves around the house, he can have Q in his ear.

Which proves useful when conversing with Arshavir’s teenage boy during dinner. Narek is fascinated with the old iPod and curious why Bond would carry music on it rather than his phone. When Bond claims to like music when he sleeps, and to have a somewhat eclectic taste requiring a personal collection, the boy starts quizzing Bond about Western music at the dinner table. Bond makes a point of having a cursory knowledge of many subjects to allow himself to blend into any circumstances, but Narek quickly exhausts James’ knowledge — at which point Q starts feeding him answers. From Chopin and Bartok to SBTRKT and London Grammar, Q is a wealth of knowledge and makes James’ claim of being a music aficionado look credible. He’s not sure if Q actually _knows_ all this music or is just googling like mad, but the illusion is perfect.

His hosts watch on, clearly pleased at the rapport developing between their new potential client and their son as James promises to make the boy a disk of music he can’t get online. Which means Narek _is_ getting some music online, though whether it’s via a phone or computer, James doesn’t know. But it’s the first lead he’s seen that doesn’t require getting past an armed guard and potentially blowing his cover. And though he’s considered creating a diversion and getting in anyway, Q would prefer this develop into a relationship they can use for several months, which seems unlikely if something so suspicious were to happen during his first visit. So he sits tight, nurtures this new relationship with Narek, and feigns jet lag as dinner winds down over coffee and chocolates. When Narek is sent to bed, James excuses himself as well. They walk down the hall together, James asking Narek if he’s heard any medieval/funk mashup. _Medieval/funk mashup? What the hell is Q googling?_ They linger at Narek’s door, finishing the conversation and wishing each other goodnight. As the door is closing, just before it snicks shut, he hears, “Alexa, lights. And Alexa, play _London Grammar_.”

He can barely contain his smile before getting behind his own closed door, leaning against the heavy wood as he locks it.

“Did you hear that, Q?”

“Hear what, 007?”

He can’t help but laugh. “Narek has an Echo. A possibly unsanctioned Echo that he used to control the lights and listen to a band he hadn’t heard of until tonight.”

There’s a pause. “You’re joking.”

“Can you use it?”

“Hell yes, I can use it! Do you still have the tablet we sewed into your case?”

“Yes, but if I try to get onto the network, they’ll see it.”

“We won’t be. We’ll be exploiting the Bluetooth capability, device to device. Unless Narek is savvy enough to overrule several default settings — which I seriously doubt — we have our back door in.”

It takes several hours of Bond typing exactly what Q dictates, but at the end Q whispers, “I’m in. Oh, Bond. This is perfect. Better than the access the original virus would have given me, and less likely to be detected, since the bulk is sitting on the Echo. I won’t do too much until you’ve been gone for a bit so they don’t track it to you. And I’m going to make that boy an _amazing_ disk of music.”

“Better make me a copy, too. I might not have you in my ear next time,” he murmurs back. Now that they’re done, he can finally relax. The house is utterly quiet, and he’s been whispering and working in a dark room, playing music in the background to cover the sound of the keyboard and maintain James’ impromptu characterization.

“I’ll do better than that. I’ll load an entire tablet for you, complete with histories of the bands.”

“How do you have time to know all this? You have a day job, I thought.” He hears a soft snort through the comms as he begins to change into his sleep clothes.

“We all need our hobbies,” Q replies.

“I thought poetry was your hobby.”

“Am I only allowed one? That’s vexing.” James smiles, listening to the keystrokes slow. “Okay, the connection is dormant now. So long as the Echo doesn’t lose power, I should be able to activate it whenever I like. Once you’re clear, I’ll run some more tests. Get some sleep now, Bond. I will be in your ear when you awake.”

“Aren’t you sleeping, too?” he asks, plugging the iPod into the charger and hiding the tablet back in the case.

“With luck. R will be here if I’m still asleep when you call in. I suggest you just play your role as a potential buyer now and have a quiet flight back. Between the personal connection you’ve forged and the electronic one we’ve established together, we’ll have our access for the coming weeks. No need to take additional risks.”

“How dull. You really worry too much, Q.”

“I worry exactly the right amount, 007,” he quips back. “Pleasant dreams and all that.”

“Goodnight, Q.”


	5. Winter, Part 4

 

He leaves the next day, the change from sunny Armenia to London rain a bit depressing, if he’s honest. Worse still for the cheerful colored lights and yuletide decorations reflected in the wet pavement. The streets aren’t crowded, but the few last-minute shoppers braving the downpour do not seem happy. He makes his way across London and to the parking structure. He wishes idly that Alec were still in town. Somehow Christmas Eve seems a particularly depressing night to spend alone, and yet he almost always does. The memories of decorated trees in Skyfall Lodge are so faded now they might well be fictions created by a youthful, hopeful mind and peered at through the dingy, fingerprinted glass of age. But he always remembers it like a cheerful music box winding down and becoming slow and melancholy. Of course, the scotch he’s often drinking when thinking of such things probably doesn’t help.  And he has the new bottle from Alec…

Q Branch is decorated festively and nearly empty when he enters. Q and R sit at monitors near enough to each other to visit, both wearing the most outrageously loud Christmas sweaters… or rather, at first glance they appear to be hideous Christmas sweaters, but on closer inspection, he sees R’s features Ganesha and Q’s a tree formed of Doctor Who characters. They’re in some heated conversation as he approaches, and fall silent when he comes level with Q’s desk.

“Welcome back, 007,” R says with a smile. “I trust you had a pleasant flight.”

“Uneventful at least, aside from the unhappy children flying to grandparents’ for the holidays.”

“Oh dear,” Q responds. “Well, we’ll soon have you off to your peaceful night. What do you have for me?”

Q checks in his equipment. “It _is_ Christmas. Nothing missing or broken. Practically a miracle…”

“Now Q, no need for sarcasm.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Q quips. “There. All checked in. Now off you go. Enjoy your evening. Oh, and here. Happy Christmas, Bond.”

That startles him. He takes the small rectangular box. “What’s this?”

“The music you asked for. It was quiet today. I made Narek’s disk as well, but you can pop that in the post with a note next week.”

“Thank you, Q. This should prove… well, interesting, if nothing else.” He wishes suddenly he’d picked something up in the airport, but he immediately dismisses the urge. A gift for the Quartermaster? Absurd. And even if it weren’t, an airport gift shop seems the last place to find something suitable for the enigmatic man.

Q nods and offers a little shrug. As if reading his mind, Q continues, “It’s not a _real_ Christmas present. I wouldn’t presume. But you did express interest, and if your alias is used repeatedly, you’ll need to bone up. It was a fun little project for R and me on a quiet day.”

“I particularly like the 9bach and Silk Rhodes,” R adds.

“You don’t even speak Welsh,” Q ribs, to which R just shrugs.

“I don’t speak Latin either, but I liked those pieces as well.”

Latin? _Welsh?_ “When you said ‘eclectic’, Q, I didn’t expect multiple languages,” James says, opening the box and looking at the small tablet as if he’d be able to see the diversity of music.

“Just be glad I didn’t let R load her Bollywood favorites,” Q maintains.

“You’d best go if you’re going,” R reminds Q. “Getting there will be horrid with the rain.”

Q sighs and rubs his eyes under his glasses. “I’m not really in the mood.”

“Well, that’s fine, but you should still get out of here. Joseph and I have the teams covered, nightshift comes soon, and you’ve been here for days. Go have a quiet night with the cats if you’re not in the mood for the theater.”

James raises an eyebrow at Q. “You had plans for the theater tonight?”

“Yes. Hamlet. It’s a good seat, too.”

“Hamlet? On Christmas Eve?”

“It’s a really good production, apparently. I had tickets earlier in the month but got held up by a mission. It’s been sold out and this one seat came available… but now.” He shrugs.

“It’s just not the ghost story most people watch for Christmas.”

“Ah,” Q nods. “You mean the story about how rich people have to be supernaturally terrorized to be convinced to share.”

James smirks. “That’s the one. Too traditional for you?”

“I’m a fan of some tradition. And that one is certainly ironic enough. Did you know Dickens only wrote it because he was strapped for cash? He pumped it out in a matter of days. He’d hate that it’s his most beloved story. Though, I imagine he’d approve of the fact that it nearly single-handedly keeps playhouses afloat so they can produce other plays, even at a minor loss.”

“I _didn’t_ know. Any hot gossip about Hamlet?”

Q’s eyes go a bit wistful. “He was sad.”

“Hamlet?”

“No, Shakespeare. And really, that’s why… I’m just not in the mood for nine corpses tonight, no matter how good the production. But R’s right. I should still pack up and go,” he adds, closing his laptop, offering a small wave, and heading back to his office. Bond chats with R while he… well, he’s not _waiting_ for the Quartermaster exactly. He’s just not in a hurry to go home to his empty flat. R is showing him photos of her son when Q reappears, surprised to find Bond still there.

“I should be going too, I suppose. I hope the world remains quiet for you tonight, R,” Bond says as he backs out the door after the bewildered Quartermaster. She waves him off and doesn’t comment on the way he’s apparently chasing after Q. For which he’s grateful.

They walk down the hall in silence for a while before Q finally asks, “So, any big plans for the evening, Bond? You aren’t interested in the Hamlet ticket, are you?”

“No, but thank you. Not really my cup of tea. And, no. No plans. It’s never a good idea to have plans the first night back after a mission.”

“I suppose that’s true.”

They get to the elevator and Q presses the Up button. James furrows his brow.

“You’re not headed to the garage?”

Q shakes his head. “I took the Tube today.”

“It’s raining cats and dogs, Q. Let me drive you home.”

Q hesitates, perhaps torn between letting James know his address and the thought of getting soaked. “Actually, there’s a pub quiz near my house that I might go to, since I’ve begged off Shakespeare. If you don’t have plans, you’d be welcome to join me. Though you look a bit posh for the venue.”

“I have a sweater in the car. It’s not as…festive as yours.”

Q quirks a smile. “I’ll lend you my scarf. It’s a tartan with snowmen.”

“That won’t be necessary.”

“It really is. You’ll feel out of place looking too drab.”

Q’s right, as it turns out. The pub looks to be about 500 years old, but the decorations are bright and garish, and the people more so. Q’s sweater is positively sedate compared with the tinsel and flashing lights adorning most of the patrons. If Bond had worn his blue cashmere without the brash tartan-and-snowman scarf, he would have felt a million years old.

More interesting than all that, though, is the ease with which Q carries himself as he enters to waves and cries of “Tom” and “Thomas my lad” greeting him.  A ginger-haired woman in an elf costume calls, “Tom’s on my team!” from behind the bar. Q weaves his way over, James just behind.

“Thought you weren’t comin’, love,” she says, hoisting herself onto the bar so she can peck him on the cheek.

“Changed my mind. Lulu, this is James, James, Lulu. We’re on her team, it would seem.”

“I only called for you. What’s he got?” James bristles a bit under her scrutiny as Q laughs.

“Well, he’s passing good with geography,” Q offers.

“Passing?” James asks incredulously.

“Absolute shite at maths, but you’ll have me for that,” Q continues.

“Passing. I’ve been to more countries—”

“He’s good with military history, too. Oh, and posh stuff… tailors and wines and whatnot.”

“Ooh, we always miss those ones,” Lulu cries. “Alright, then. He’s on our team. James, is it? What’ll ye’ have? Tom? Your regular?”

“Ta, Lulu. Make it two. James can have the same.”

She nods and heads to the back.

“Passing?” James asks pointedly.

Q snickers like a bloody schoolboy. “Well, best to surprise them with your brilliance after they’ve underestimated you.”

That’s probably true, actually. But… “Ordering my drinks for me?”

Q waves a hand. “You’ll like it. And I can’t have you embarrassing me with one of your posh martini orders.”

Lulu’s back with two tumblers of amber liquid. “Drink up lads. Only not too much: I want to wipe that smug smile off Giles’ face this year. We’re at table four.”

James follows Q through the crowd to their table, They’re the first there — it’s early still. They sit with their backs to the wall and take in the room, sipping at their drinks. It’s... surprisingly good. A very fine whiskey, meant to be sipped neat. He had no idea Q liked such things.

Speaking of Q…

“So, your name is Thomas?” he murmurs without turning his head.

“So far as they’re concerned. It’s not the name you would find on my HR paperwork at -6,” Q answers quietly. “But my neighbors need to call me something.”

“This is your neighborhood, then?”

“Hmm. I live five blocks from here.”

“Which direction?”

“Not telling.” And with that Q takes a smug sip of his drink, and before Bond can press the issue, one of their teammates joins them.

The next three hours are, Bond must admit, some of the most fun he’s had in years that didn’t involve a gun or a high-speed chase. It’s like a cross between a pub quiz and poker. The questions are ridiculous. Beyond trivia. And people are bluffing answers and getting called out and winning or gaining points based on that — not as many as correct answers, but enough that James is soon an MVP of his team, in part because he _does_ know history and geography and (apparently much to Q’s surprise) Doctor Who Christmas Specials, but mostly because he’s the best liar. Q, on the other hand, is a terrible liar but knows the most _obscure_ things about London. And art. He recognizes painted portraits of Londoners from hundreds of years ago. Bond suspects he’s essentially memorized the National Portrait Gallery.

Only once in the uproarious fun is James surprised to see Q’s face go melancholic. It’s one of the old paintings, which another team guesses as Shakespeare, but before the moderator can even say their answer is wrong, Q has slapped his hand on the bell. “That’s Sir Walter Raleigh,” Q corrects. “A poet, among other things.” The game moves on to Monty Python, and the moment’s lost, but Bond files away that wistful look to ponder later.

The game winds up at half eleven. Their team has won, and every member takes home a miniature bottle of scotch and a novelty gift, handed out by Lulu. Q ends up with a Paddington plush. James gets a 12’ striped scarf like the fourth Doctor’s, but in oh-so-bright Christmas colors. Q absolutely cackles as he winds it around James’ neck a few times and snaps a picture with his phone before James can quite muster the will to intercede. That will be on display in the Q Branch break room by New Years’, he imagines.

Lulu kicks them all out with the lewd suggestion that Father Christmas won’t come if they all aren’t under the sheets in the next ten minutes. James thinks it’s unlikely any of this lot will be so lucky so quickly — least of all himself — but he pours out of the pub with the rest of them, barely seeing the plaque as he ducks through the low door.

“That’s a Grade I listed building?” he asks as he approaches Q, who is busily buttoning his coat against the frosty air. The rain, thankfully, has ended and a heavy mist coats the air instead.

“What? Oh yes. One of the hallmarks of this neighborhood is the ancient rubbing elbows with the modern. Part of why I like it. That brick two-story across the way isn’t quite as old, but heralds from Dickens’ time. And then this new chrome and glass office going in between them…” He shrugs.

“You approve the modern buildings as well?” Bond steps in beside Q, matching his pace and direction.

Q stops and turns to _really_ look at the building in question. James remembers what it is to have that assessing gaze locked on him. When Q looks at something, he _really looks_. Some find it grating, but Bond appreciates the single-minded attention. After a moment’s consideration, Q says, “I like the lines of it. Crisp, but smooth and arching. It’s not just a box. It looks almost delicate beside the half-timber pub, and I think I like each building more for the juxtaposition. You can’t take either for granted when they’re next to each other like that.”

“True,” James agrees, turning to follow Q along the narrow kerb. A high wall runs along the edge of the sidewalk for as far as he can see along the gentle curve of the road. Tree branches reach through the fog overhead from the other side toward the street, periodically illuminated by street lamps. It’s peaceful in a slightly eerie sort of way. He can almost imagine it looked this way in Dickens’ time, swapping gaslamps for the high-efficiency electric ones in use now. It’s midnight. Time for the third ghost, and he feels that old Ebenezer might be on the other side of this wall right now, peering down on his own grave while the silent specter looks on.

Bond shivers and glances at Q, who is watching him curiously. He looks back the way they came, at the old and the new, both dated and timeless. London is always like this, but the past seems to have a stronger hold now that they’re away from the blinking lights and cheer of the pub. “Hard to imagine that glass and chrome will be here in another 500 years, though,” he muses, thinking of the modern building amongst all this history. “Whereas the Tudor pub looks as solid as a rock.”

“Hmmm. Maybe so,” Q agrees. “But I’m always surprised at what lasts.”

Q slows to a stop, and James realizes they’re standing by his car. He feels oddly disappointed that the evening is over. But really, it’s been much better than he would have expected. “I’m not walking you home?”

“No need,” Q says. “I’m glad you came out, though.”

“Me, too. Thank you, Q. I had…a surprisingly good time.”

Q snorts. “Well, sorry they weren’t serving caviar and martinis, but these are people of simple tastes. And we serve to protect them as well, do we not?”

“We do,” James agrees.

They stand there together in the growing mist, closer than they normally would. Q… well, there’s more to him than meets the eye, James decides. He’s long appreciated the man’s professionalism and dry wit, but tonight he’s seen something else. A relaxed, comfortable, surprisingly well-rounded Renaissance man, who can laugh so hard he cries. James is grateful to have seen it, this glimpse of the man behind the moniker. Charmed, even.

And before he really quite realizes what he’s doing, he brushes Q’s chin with his fingers, tilts his head back, and places a gentle kiss on the side of his mouth.

“Happy Christmas, Tom.”

Q’s eyes are wide as James pulls back. “Ha-Happy Christmas. James,” he stammers, looking surprised, but not overly alarmed. James pulls his key out of his pocket and presses the button, triggering the lights and soft _beep_ indicating the alarm is disarmed. Q offers an awkward wave and turns to go as James walks around to the drivers’ side and tosses his new scarf and scotch inside.

“Don’t eat too much figgy pu—”

But the sidewalk is empty when James looks up. Not even retreating footfalls disturb the midnight still.


	6. Spring, Part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PSA: Some folks are starting to guess regarding Q's nature and what may or may not be supernatural in this fic. This thrills me, and I don't want to discourage it at all, but I do want to warn readers in case they want to work out the mysteries on their own... While I encourage you to leave comments (they seriously make me so happy), you might avoid READING others' comments. 
> 
> Also, please remember James can't read the tags and isn't aware he's in a sp00qy fic. Have patience with him not picking up on things quite as quickly...
> 
> As always, much love to my betas Cas and Ducky, and all the readers who have been leaving comments. I'm having so much fun!

__

 

_In long winter, cold and dark_

_Hides sleeping life ’neath snow and bark_

_'Til wan sun warms the icy park_

_To leave behind a gentle mark_

_And what was frozen numb full through_

_Stirs again and hopes anew._

_A.T. Cooke, 1615_

 

“007, you’ll have 30 seconds to get into position on my mark. Three, two, one, mark.”

Bond scrambles around the corner and bolts across the open pavement, getting in the shadow of another tower of shipping containers as Q finishes his countdown.

“In position,” he murmurs, pulling a piece of tech from his inside jacket pocket. It takes a moment to warm up. “Negative,” he confirms as the display lights up.

“Bugger.”

Bond understands his frustration. This is the third location they’ve checked for the missing nuclear material, rumored for sale on tor sites Q was able to access after chasing some of the connections Bond had established in Armenia. Those connections were still providing new information, but there were layers of code and secrecy surrounding everything. “Perhaps it’s shielded?” he offers.

“These people don’t strike me as particularly safety conscious,” Q complains over the line.

“No,” Bond agrees.

“Damn. Car coming, 007. I think… there’s not time to retreat. I’m sorry, you’ll have to shelter in place.”

“How many?” he whispers, pulling his Walther out and sinking deeper into the shadows.

“Just one, but the guards have heard and are interrupting their rounds to intercept. It may provide an opening to make for those trees to the east It’ll make for a long way back to your vehicle, but...”

“Understood.”

The car approaches and parks, not 100 feet from where Bond is crouching. Two men exit the car and ask for one of the guards. Bond can’t see who’s arrived, but he can make out most of what they’re saying. Q, to his credit, stays silent, though James can hear him typing away.

The conversation… it’s stilted. In code, but something more… one of the new men is trying to get information from a guard without giving something away. Bond listens intently trying to memorize not just the words but the tone. When it’s over, he hears a car door shut and the vehicle pull away. In the resulting quiet, Q says, “Both guards heading to the north of the building. Now’s your chance if you want to get to the treeline.”

He grunts an acknowledgment and starts to run, alert to how exposed his back is, but absolutely trusting Q has it covered. He makes the shelter of the trees as Q announces, “Guard two coming around the corner in three, two, one, mark. Well. That was more exciting than we intended, but it looks like other than a longer walk back to your car’s hiding place, no harm’s been done.”

“Indeed,” Bond gasps, leaning his back against a tree to catch his breath. “And maybe some good. They asked who had been at warehouse 504. Do we know about warehouse 504?”

“I have dozens of warehouses on my list, but no, I don’t know it as such. If it’s one of the buildings nearby I can send you. I’ve been tracking their car since they left. I can see where they go.”

“Probably for the best.”

“Hmmm,” Q agrees. “What else did they say?”

James starts walking in the direction of his car. “They mentioned Köln. And... is there a place locally called ‘the embankment’?”

“No. I don’t think so. I’ll check the maps again but… they might have meant…”

“London,” James sighs. “The tube station?”

“Bugger.”

***

James returns from a string of missions in early February. Q’s underground lair is bustling as he returns what’s remaining of his tech. Q tsks at him and gives him a look that’s… complicated. They haven’t spoken about that night. The kiss. The abrupt emptiness of the street. James blames the very fine whiskey on the latter. The former… well, he hasn’t seen Q laugh like he did on Christmas Eve since. He’s been nothing but professional and capable. But there are these lingering looks, even at headquarters. As if Q is trying to solve a puzzle, in James, or perhaps in himself.

James finds he likes those looks. Perhaps now there will be a chance to explore what they mean. Three days into his forced rest period post-mission he’s already stir crazy. His injury is enough to keep him from the field, but not enough to actually keep him down. He goes to -6 and swims laps, actually makes an appearance in medical for his check-up, and then heads to M’s office. Eve is on the phone and motions for him to sit and browse the newspaper. It’s the usual mix of political scandal, business mergers, and royal family sightings.

“Anything interesting?” Eve asks as she hangs up the phone, nodding at The Times.

Bond folds the paper and sets it down. “Horses have trampled the flowerbeds in Hyde Park, and there’s much ado about whether the bulbs will be up in time for the Queen’s flower show.”

Eve gasps. “The _scandal_!”

Bond nods. “You can imagine Scotland Yard is at loose ends.”

“Perhaps MI5 can help. Speaking of, Q has them working with TfL to check Embankment. The first search didn’t reveal anything, but now they’re checking machinery and track switches.”

“It wasn’t much to go on,” Bond admits. “There are embankments everywhere.”

“Best to be safe. And the other warehouse?”

“Traces of radiation, like I wrote in my report. They’re keeping the material on the move, it would seem.”

“Q’s got a team tracking vehicles that moved in and out during that time, but it’s a bit of a spider’s web. How’s the leg?”

“Manageable.”

She raises an eyebrow, seeing straight through the lie. “Sit tight another week or so and Q will have somewhere good to send you. Now off with you. M’s at the Prime Minister’s and I have a brief to compile before he’s back. And don’t overdo it on that leg.”

James takes the dismissal and limps down to Q Branch. Q isn’t on the floor and R is busy leading 005 on comms, so he peeks into Q’s office. The door is open, so he makes himself at home while he waits for the boffin, wondering if he’s going to find another leather book of poetry. He doesn’t, but a glance at the paper calendar on the wall — boasting pictures of ancient buildings of Britain — has him remembering something odd from the mission. Q took the first of February off, despite the fact that it was a Thursday and both James and Alec were on mission. James is so used to Q being available when he’s needed on comms, it struck him as odd in the moment, but he’d assumed that Q was busy with a different mission. Looking at the calendar, though, it’s clearly marked, “off / ᛓ” in Q’s slanted scrawl. He’s leaning in to examine the symbol when he hears a throat clear behind him.

“I didn’t touch anything,” he says as he turns.

Q doesn’t look upset, though, just amused. “Already at loose ends?”

“I was hoping you’d have something for me to test,” James admits.

“No firing range for you. Medical called and said you were still to be off your leg for another few days.”

Curse them. And Q for heeding them.

“It’s a conspiracy,” Bond complains.

“Quite,” Q answers with enough mischief in his eyes it reminds James of the night of the pub quiz. “There is something you could help with that would keep you on your arse and your leg elevated for the next few hours, if you wouldn’t mind.”

“I’m not doing extra paperwork, Q.”

“It’s not, I promise. Ms. Callahan was going to have a go at it, but she’s shadowing R.” Q picks up a tablet, brings up a file, and hands it to Bond. “This is the transcript of a meeting Marcus recorded in Greece. We think it might be part of the same network, using the same code. We’ve written a script to highlight the words we know from the code, but it seems to be morphing. Some of these might not be code at all, and others might be. Could you go through it, based on your knowledge, and underline the things our program missed in both directions? If we’re going to expand the surveillance we need a better sense of how well the program captures hits.”

James doesn’t ask whom they’re surveilling. Q is careful to get permission and when he’s not, it’s for good reason. He takes the tablet and spends the next few hours sitting on a sofa in Q’s office making notes on the transcript. It’s interesting, if inactive, work. Q sits quietly at his desk, typing away and occasionally humming to himself. James wonders if he always does this and the din of the open branch usually masks the sound. It’s not unpleasant, though it has an odd lilting quality that sounds almost like a reel he would have heard in the village of his youth. The other times he’s heard music in Q Branch it’s been _very_ modern. Synth and lounge and he’s not even sure what else. By comparison, this feels… comfortable.

He finishes his notes just as R knocks on the door. “005 is safely _en route_ home, as is the data. With the airline connections, it’ll be two days before it’s here. You should go home, Q.”

Q looks up owlishly and starts to protest before seeing the clock on the wall and doing an actual doubletake, pulling a chuckle from Bond.

“When was the last time you ate, Q?” he asks, standing and stretching. “I assume I should give this to you, R?”

“Thank you, 007,” she says, snatching the tablet away before Q can grab it. “I’ll synthesize your notes into a memo that can be waiting for Q on Monday.” She raises an eyebrow at the boffin, daring him to argue.

He groans. “I _am_ the one who signs the time-sheets still, aren’t I? We haven’t reversed those roles?”

“Not yet. But it’s Friday at six, and the missions don’t require your expertise…so you’re cluttering up my branch.”

Q’s expression is utterly priceless. Bond’s never seen to two head boffins bicker, but he likes it. A lot. He wonders if Alec has seen it.

Q starts to open his mouth when R adds, “And you’ve been here how long?”

James can almost see Q’s calculations. “Too long,” Q admits. “All right, I’ll unclutter _your_ branch. Everyone out of my office.” He shoos them like they’re cats.

James lingers in the branch, donning his scarf and coat, fiddling with things until Q comes out, anorak already on and carrier bag draped over his shoulder. If Q is surprised to see him still there, he doesn’t show it.

James falls into step beside him, and they are nearly to the elevators when he says, “I was thinking maybe kebabs. We could both use some protein.”

Q looks at him sideways. “I beg your pardon? Are you suggesting we dine together?”

“You didn’t seem to remember when you’d last eaten, and I know you don’t have pressing plans, since R had to eject you from the branch…unless you need to get back to the cats?” James suggests.

“No, they’re quite self-reliant. Excellent mousers, even, if the feeder I’ve programmed for them runs out.”

“Your building has mice?” James asks, holding the elevator door open as Q enters.

“ALL of London has mice… You should have seen the teeth-marks on the wiring when we first settled in the bunkers. My building is older than most, and I’d rather have working cats than poisonous bait.”

James raises an eyebrow at Q as his hand hovers over the button for the garage.

Q huffs a laugh. “Fine. Kebab sounds good actually. Where were you thinking?”

James presses the button and the elevator lurches in descent. “You’ll see.”


	7. Spring, Part 2

 

They cross the river and James parks near LSE. The kebab place in is in a narrow alley near the university, in an older part of London revitalized by youthful enterprise. There are cafes and shops, tattoo parlors and spas. Q looks right at home as they take their seats in the window. They can’t discuss work here where anyone can hear, and it takes a moment to find a topic since they are both still very much thinking of work, but eventually, James mentions he’s been listening to the music Q had provided, and they’re off. Q’s terribly curious if James actually likes any of it.

“I don’t have much sense for your actual musical tastes,” Q says. “I’m aware you know a lot of classical music for work, but I don’t even know if you like any of _that._ ”

“I do. I like chamber music more than the symphony, piano more than horns. Skyfall had a lovely piano,” he muses. “But I grew up listening to rock and jazz, so I like a fair amount of that, as well. Having seen your tablet, I now realize that enjoying three genres doesn’t make me eclectic at all.”

“Not compared to some, no,” Q says with a smirk. “We’ll have to compare jazz collections sometime. Did you play piano?”

“No, but my mother did.” He takes a sip of his drink. “You?”

“I play a bit,” Q admits.

“Any favorites?”

“Hmmm. Chopin. Winston... I went through a Vince Guaraldi phase for a bit.”

Bond raises an impressed eyebrow. “Another hobby?” he quips.

“Just so.”

The conversation shifts from music to books to history. Once again, James is impressed with Q’s knowledge. He’s not a show-off. He’s not trying to impress James with his knowledge, he’s just infinitely curious and interested, it would seem. He asks James about his time in the Navy and _really_ listens to the answer. Not because he’s trying to gain secrets or best an adversary, but because he’s genuinely interested. This might be what he likes most about Q. The only thing he seems to find boring is politics. Which… fair enough. That’s why they have M, so they don’t have to think about that.

It’s still early when they exit the restaurant, and they are so engrossed in conversation still that James starts walking the neighborhood aimlessly rather than heading to the car. The city is in transition: offices and shops closing and music and laughter streaming out onto the street from pubs and clubs. It’s a pleasant night: spring teasing on the breeze, light lingering just a bit longer, pushing at the darkness. But now the glow of bright lights flashing to pulsating music keep the dark at bay as well. They’ve turned down a new street, Q speaking animatedly about Rachmaninoff, when he turns abruptly and stares at a building, then finds the street sign.

“We’re on Drury Lane?” he asks, as if he didn’t just read it.

James shrugs.

“Do you know what this is?” Q asks, pointing at the pitched-roof stone building currently housing a nightclub.

“No idea, Tom,” James says lightly. “But I’m guessing I’m about to find out.”

“In 1968, this was the home of the Arts Lab! Where David Bowie got his start… well, one of his starts… And John Lennon’s first art with Yoko Ono was displayed—”

“We won’t hold that against it, though, shall we?” James interjects.

“And it sparked an Arts Lab movement… they popped up all over for a bit.”

James just starts laughing.

“What?” Q asks.

“How do you know all this? David Bowie was before _my_ time, much less yours.”

Q freezes. “Oh. Well, I had an uncle that was very into it. Told me all about it, growing up. I’m a bit of a David Bowie fan. Anyway, we all need our hobbies.”

“And yours are tallying up. Do you want to go in? They aren’t playing Ziggy Stardust, but they might not realize the hallowed ground they occupy.”

Q considers for a moment, clearly caught off guard.

“The sign says they have more than 50 scotches and whiskeys. Come on, Tom… I have my own hobbies to pursue, after all,” James coaxes with a grin.

Q flashes him a mischievous look. “Oh, alright. I suppose there’s no harm.”

They find a spot at the bar and order a flight, sharing so they can taste a variety while staying reasonably sober. The music is loud, and there’s dancing, but they can still talk if they lean in close. James isn’t even sure what they talk about, but time melts away, lost in lilting words, the smokey taste of peat on his tongue, the spicy scent of Q’s aftershave, and the animated gleam in Q’s green, flashing eyes. And suddenly James isn’t listening anymore, he’s just watching Q’s lips move. They’re captivating. Moist where Q’s licked them and rosy and clever… and harder to resist than gravity. James leans in slowly, hearing Q’s words falter and die, his breath hitch as their lips brush against each other and then hover millimeters apart.

Q freezes, but just as James starts to think this has been a _very_ horrible move on his part, Q whimpers and opens his mouth and kisses him back... and it’s bloody _glorious_ …

Until Q pulls away abruptly, eyes wide.

“Oh, god, this is a _terrible_ idea,” he mutters.

“Almost certainly,” James agrees, tasting Q on his lips. “Though I find that most of my best ideas start out as terrible ones.”

There’s a pause. “That explains a lot about your work,” Q deadpans. “Seriously, though. We can’t. We…” He shakes his head. “I _like_ you!”

“I like you, too. Do you prefer intimacy with people you don’t like?” James asks, bemused.

“Don’t _you?”_

James pulls back and sighs. “No. But I can understand why you’d think so.” He drains the last of the scotch and sets the glass on the bar. Q is watching him, hunger burning in his eyes. It wouldn’t take much, James thinks, to tip the balance. Just a lean in to whisper something into Q’s ear or a hand on his thigh might be enough to chip through whatever concerns Q is debating in his mind. James can see it. It would be almost nothing to get Q to agree to go home with him.

And that’s all it would be worth.

Instead, he brushes his fingers along Q’s cheekbone, watching Q’s eyes flutter.

“Perhaps another time,” James suggests, suddenly very tired.

“Perhaps,” Q agrees, but it sounds like a denial.

James pulls back and reaches for his coat. “Can I drive you home?” he asks, knowing the answer.

“No. No, I’ll be fine on the tube. But thanks for the offer. And tonight. I really did have a wonderful time. I—”

“Me, too.”

They leave the club together, only parting at the corner with the main street. The tube station is to the right, the car to the left. They linger in the middle with potential heavy like gravity between them and the fragility of Q’s choice on the air.

“I’ll see you Monday?” James asks as lightly as he can.

Q nods, looking torn. “Stay off your leg.”

“You worry too much,” James quips, typical of their usual banter, and like that they are back to normal, Q shaking his head with a smile.

“I worry exactly the right amount,” he counters with his usual response.

James grins. “I daresay you do. Enjoy the tube.”

He watches as Q turns and disappears amongst the crowd on the kerb, toward the stairs to the Underground. A breeze picks up as he heads for the car, offering something sweet on the air. Promise, perhaps.


	8. Spring, Part 3

 

It takes two weeks for Bond’s leg to heal enough to be sent out again. By then, Alec has gone out and come back twice, confirming leads that allow Q’s spider-web of an organizational chart to grow and morph on an electronic whiteboard at one end of the branch. James continues to help with the code in between physical therapy and recovery, and he has been working with Katie Callahan to augment the vocabulary list she’d started so that all the agents working this particular web could use it. He comes in one day to find she’s created an app for that, and Q has made it standard on the agents’ phones, frequently updated so as to be made current after each mission.

Needless to say, he’s spent a lot of time in Q Branch. And though he’s restless for fieldwork now, he’s been reasonably content during his weeks of recovery. The project helped, of course, but it was more than that. Q essentially set up a station for him to work at near Katie’s, and he was able to get a sense of the rhythm of Q Branch in a way that he hasn’t been privy to in the past. The way Q keeps an eye on everything from his monitors in the front, almost like a conductor, checking in with sections as their work becomes time-critical, bringing some projects forward, allowing others to fade back into quiet solitary work. The branch watches him as if he were a conductor too, each team member ready to come forward when asked, but otherwise focused on their tasks at hand. He doesn’t micromanage them. He treats their ingenuity and work ethic with respect and is generally hands-off unless needed. But he’s very aware of what’s happening throughout the branch. Bond notices the way Q glances up and takes stock of the different projects happening around the open workspace. Even the odd break being taken over tea. He rarely interferes in the minutia of the minions’ efforts, but Bond would be very surprised if anything ever got past him.

James is on the receiving end of those professional, assessing glances, as well, when he’s sitting at the station next to Katie’s. Those aren’t the glances that interest him, though it’s oddly comforting to have Q’s gaze scan over him like he’s in no way out of place. It’s the glances he receives later in the evenings, when the branch is quieter and Q has retreated to his office to write or code — or whatever boffins do in the quiet of their offices — and James enters sipping a cup of coffee and reading from a tablet to settle on the sofa. Q never protests James’ presence. Rarely comments on it at all. He just works and lets James work, until one or the other of them gets up to go home.

But he watches. James can feel his gaze, almost hear the hitch of breath as Q almost says something and then decides against it. And he _knows_ : the possibility is still there.  Undefined, as yet amorphous, but potent. He doesn’t act on it — he’s not even sure he knows what he wants from it — but he allows it to warm him. This hint of a spark that might come to life in a day or a week or a month. Or never. He admits it may be never. But then he feels Q’s gaze again…and it doesn’t feel like never.

By the time medical clears him for fieldwork, Q has a list of new targets for him.

“We’ll be sending you to Greece and then Bulgaria,” he says when James comes to his office for the kit, approaching the workbench where Q stands before the arranged tech. “Here’s your usual Walther and two earpieces, in case a building explodes and you lose one in the yard—”

“That only happened once, Q.”

“This phone has the new code app, and a tracking program that will pair with these,” Q continues, opening a box of what look like button batteries. “Press here and they’ll transmit a signal your phone should pick up for about 10 miles. This side’s magnetic if you want to attach it to a car or something, but it’s small enough you should be able to plant it in someone’s pocket. We’d like you to locate their headquarters and if all goes well, possibly bring one or two in for questioning.”

“Questioning?”

“Yes. And that’s not a euphemism. We want non-lethal questioning. With words. Not bodies.”

“How inefficient.”

“That depends on one’s intent, I imagine. They do much of their work offline, so we’re forced to employ more old-fashioned techniques.”

“So you’re sending your old-fashioned agent.”

Q snorts. “You’re hardly old-fashioned, James. I know something about it.”

“Yes, you and your medieval-funk mashup.”

“And my poetry,” Q reminds him.

“And your cardigans.”

“My cardigans? What’s wrong with my cardis?” Q asks, genuinely surprised.

“Nothing at all. Everything old is new again.”

“This is _very_ modern,” Q protests.

“I agree. _And_ I’m fairly certain Kincade wore one just like it in my youth.”

Q looks down at the brown wool. “That might be true,” he admits.

“So, if I’m able to detain one these gentlemen for questioning?”

“I’ll be in your ear and able to direct you to an embassy where we’ll take custody.”

“And barring that?”

“If needs must, of course, field interrogation is allowed. But we’d eventually like some of them in custody to fill in the blanks in the web or maybe use as bait for the next level of spiders. Might as well start with this lot.”

“I’ll do my best to deliver them relatively unscathed. You can be the good cop.”

Q snorts and hands over the rest of the tech.

“Any word on Embankment?” James asks.

“Hmmm. They found a panel that had been tampered with, but didn’t see anything amiss when they opened it. They’re replacing components in case something was sabotaged. And they’ve granted me access to their video logs.”

“Don’t you have access, anyway?”

“Shhh.” Q flashes a conspiratorial grin. “Official access,” he clarifies. “Here are your documents. I’ll be guiding you most of the time, with R as my relief. We may have Katie shadow, since she could prove useful with the code and needs to learn to run missions.”

“She’s quick,” James agrees. “Has good instincts.”

“Just so. Alec’s most recent report from the region has been loaded onto your phone. Same security credentials as usual.”

“I’ll try to look at it on the plane,” Bond says, loading the equipment into his pockets and smoothing his jacket. He hesitates for a moment. He’s so used to their easy companionship that it feels strange walking away without acknowledging it in some way. But putting to voice that he’ll miss these afternoons in Q’s office seems to be against the unwritten rules they’ve set. Q isn’t looking at him. He’s leaning heavily against the workbench staring at the space the tech just vacated, clearly lost in his own thoughts. “I’ll be in touch when I land,” Bond finally says.

He starts to move past Q to exit the office, when Q reaches out to stop him, placing a hand on his stomach. James’ breath hitches at the intimacy of it. They are standing closer than they’ve been since the night in the bar. Q‘s eyes are lowered, focussed somewhere on Bond’s chest, and his breathy “James” is barely audible.

Bond’s stomach tightens under Q’s fingers and flips at the sound of his name. They are hovering close enough that Bond can smell the spice of Q’s aftershave. He feels the pull of the man, feels Q on the brink of… something. James waits, breath held in anticipation.

“Be careful out there, 007,” Q finally says, face tipping so James can just make out the green of his eyes.

He lets the breath go. “Always, Q.”

He’s on a plane seven hours later.


	9. Spring, Part 4

 

There are times in this job when James feels like a god — or perhaps a demigod. With his own training and Q’s tech, he feels practically invincible. With Q in his ear, he’s nearly omniscient. And with his own audacity — Q would call it recklessness — he simply _dares_ to try things others won’t…and he usually succeeds. And so he tears through Greece over the coming weeks, moving from the initial target to the next link in the chain, closer and closer to an actual node in the organization...someone who knows enough of the contacts to be worth bringing in. In the meantime he’s confiscating data and planting Q’s tracers, following them to the next target, and sending Q any data he can. So far, no one has merited Q’s questioning, but he’s getting closer, he can taste it.

Five weeks into the mission, he has his best lead yet. He follows it to the border, seduces the sister of a guard, steals an access card, and makes his way to the edge of a facility that he thinks is housing the nuclear material. It takes a week of reconnaissance to learn the patterns of the guards, and then a week of stealth to get the readings he needs to confirm. When he has that, he sends it to Q,

“This is wonderful work, 007, but still not all we believe they have,” Q says late one evening over the comms.

“I’m aware. I’ve placed one of your little devices on a car that was parked outside the warehouse. I’ll be trailing it when it leaves.”

“That’s promising. You track the people, and I’ll use satellites to track the material. Now that we’ve caught up with it, I should be able to surveil remotely, at least until M is able to negotiate a way to secure it.”

“Very good. I expect I’ll be crossing the border tomorrow. Is the alias still good?”

“Richard Sterling hasn’t been tagged on any of the lists I watch. You should be clear.”

“Ta, Q.” He searches for another topic, not quite ready to end the conversation, but has no other mission details to relate. He sighs, wishing he could see Q’s face and get a better sense of his thoughts. James can still feel Q’s fingers on his stomach where he’d stopped him before the mission. Still feels himself tense in anticipation as Q’s curls nearly brush against his chest. He’s had many long nights on this mission to recall every detail, to remember the feel of Q’s mouth in the bar before he pulled away and reverted to warm professionalism. He feels like he’s faced with a wall without handholds, impossible to climb. “I’ll be in touch when the mark’s on the move,” he finally says.

“Either R or I will be here for support.”

That’s not his usual reply. “Is someone else in the field who needs your attention?”

There’s a pause. “My attention will be split, yes. But you’ll be in good hands, and I shouldn’t be long. I’ll get these coordinates to M and we’ll arrange a raid once you’re clear. That will likely send a ripple through the organization, so be on alert.”

“I’m always on alert, Q. That’s why I’m still alive.” James audibly replaces the clip on the gun he’s been cleaning for emphasis.

“I suppose that’s for the best,” Q muses, though his voice has gone a bit melancholy. “Safe travels, Bond. Try to get some rest.”

“And you, Q.”

He creates an alarm so he’ll be woken if the tracked vehicle moves in the night, but manages a full night’s sleep before he’s scrambling to his car to follow. He crosses the border and winds his way through the mountains, following a few miles behind the car, tracking it on his phone’s app. It’s not until he’s passed through the third small village where all eyes appear to be on his car as he drives through that his suspicion is piqued. He slows as he exits the town, checking the map on the GPS for a turn-off he can use to break off pursuit and lay low. There’s nothing for a few miles…

He activates the comms.

“Q Branch here,” comes R’s voice.

“Do you have my position?” he asks as he rounds a curve to find a roadblock ahead.

Bugger. Bloody fucking _hell—_

“Yes, we have you.”

“I’m in trou—”

He swerves as he sees the guns raised. There’s nothing but forest on either side of the road, so he spins the car and gets moving in the opposite direction, bullets following.

“007, sitrep!”

“They knew I was following. They laid a—”

His car is hit, barreling toward the trees as he fights it with all the skill he can muster. He’s just gotten it back on the road when he’s hit again. The last thing he thinks before the airbag hits his face and the world goes dark is that he wishes it’d been Q’s voice.

***

_He bolted across the golden moors, struggling over hummocks, breath panting as the sound of galloping horses grew closer. Like a fox, he was pursued without relent. He ran on, realizing that he was only delaying the inevitable: he was far too far from home for hope. The host of riders pounded behind him, finally reaching him as he crested the hill behind the house, solid grey stone rising from the moor. Tripping, he stumbled onto his back, the smell of peat and earth and home filling his nostrils as the riders thundered around him and then spread out in a line before him, black cloaks billowing behind black horses, save one. Upon the pale mare in the front rode a woman, fair and brutal in her beauty. The others wore high dark collars and impassive expressions, but she raised a silk-clad arm and haughty eyebrow as cold fear gripped his heart—_

Bond jolts awake in a cool white room, monitors beeping and his hands weighted down. He swallows down the panic as he recognizes the room: MI6 medical, not some holding cell in the mountains. The weight on his wrist not a restraint, but… Q’s head?

He stares at the mop of dark curls, trying to remember anything of how he got here. Darkness followed by flashes of light and voices, the sound of helicopter rotors… none of it seems as real as the galloping hooves he can still hear from his fading dream. But this — the feel of Q’s curls on his wrist, the weight of his sleeping head making his hand numb from lack of circulation — it’s far more welcome than anything else he can imagine right now.

He wonders idly what time it is when Q raises his head, bleary eyes turning to James’ and widening.

“James?” he asks, fingers tightening around James’ hand.

“Hello, Q,” James croaks.

“James!” Q clambers to his feet, hands scrabbling over James’ chest as if confirming he’s really there.

“It’s alright Q, I’m fine,” he says under force of habit. “At least, I think I’m fine,” he adds, trying to confirm he can actually move everything.

“Now, I think you are. Or, you will be.” Q takes a deep breath, searching James’ face. “We weren’t the only ones surveilling by satellite. They must have seen you were following sometime after the border crossing.”

“How long?”

“That was four days ago. They drugged you, and I basically started an international incident that M is still smoothing over in order to get you out. The stolen nuclear material we retrieved in Greece is going a long way to justify our actions though, so I think I’m not likely to be fired. You’ve been here for two days and…” He trails off. “We weren’t sure when you’d wake up.”

James hears what Q avoids saying: they weren’t sure _if_ he’d wake up. “So you’ve been watching over me. As you always do.”

His expression falls. “I should have been here that night. I… R did what she could, and by the time I got here she had everything ready so I could act. But it still took hours. I was ready to burn _everything_ to the ground to get to you. I would have—”

Emotion twists at his face.

“Q,” James starts, not even sure he knows what he wants to say. That he’s so grateful Q came for him? That he’s relieved to wake up to him. That he thought of him often on mission, and all that was left unsaid between them. Q won’t meet his eyes; he’s struggling for composure. “Tom,” James tries gently, and this time Q’s breath hitches and he turns to face him.

“All I could think,” Q starts, “was that I’d been such a _fool_ , assuming we’d have more time. Assuming that denying myself would _protect_ me — or you — when it only made my regret harsher. My sense of time and inevitably has grown so muddled,” he shakes his head. “But when faced with the _real_ possibility of never seeing you again, it was like a veil was ripped from me, and I couldn’t...I couldn’t…”

James finds Q’s hand. “What we do is dangerous, Tom. You know that. I understand when people don’t want to be involved,” he says simply.

“Well, bugger _that_ ,” Q exclaims. “What’s the point of living if you don’t allow yourself to feel alive?” And suddenly Q’s lips are on his. He grunts in surprise and a dull pain that fades immediately in the wake of _yes_ and _finally!_ Q’s lips are warm and softer than he remembered and more enthusiastic that he could have imagined from past experience. James flinches slightly and threads a hand into his curls as Q pulls away slightly, asking, “Am I hurting you?”

“No,” James lies against Q’s lips, because there’s no way in _hell_ he’s allowing this to stop. Though… “You _are_ putting on a show for the CCTV.”

“It’s three in the morning; no one’s watching and I’ll wipe the video before anyone looks. Though they might notice the spike in your heart rate.”

“I’ll blame it on a nightmare,” he counters, though for the life of him he can’t remember a single unpleasant dream at the moment, because Q is allowing James to pull him back down into another kiss. It’s long and sweet and holds so much promise James aches with it.

“I’m a nightmare, am I?” Q laughs against his lips as they part for breath. He’s holding himself awkwardly above James, trying not to upset any of the tubes or monitoring wires currently connected to him.

“Only for the people trying to get in our way,” James quips, earning a breathy laugh.

“There’s that,” Q admits.

“Lucky for me.” James kisses him again and then sinks back into his pillow. “Sorry I let them get away.”

“Hush. Besides, they didn’t find the tracker. R’s found a way to use cell towers to locate their car. She’s still tracking them.”

He stands and smooths James’ sheets. “Are you going?” James asks, disappointed.

“Just telling the nurse you’re awake. While she’s checking you, I can clear the video log. Then you should sleep. And now that you’re definitely this side of the veil, perhaps I should think about getting a shower and some proper rest, as well. We both need to seem sane if we’re going to get you sprung anytime soon.”

He can feel himself being pulled back into sleep, so he nods and settles back. After all, as usual, his Quartermaster is operating steps ahead of him. He offers a small wave as Q leaves, then furrows his brow at the odd scent. Raising the hand that was in Q’s hair to his nose, he realizes it smells of woodsmoke.


	10. Summer, Part 1

 

The next week is a blur. He’s still slipping in and out of consciousness at first, concussed and woozy from the drugs in his system. M and Eve have both been in to see him, and once Alec tried to slip him a fifth of scotch — for medicinal purposes, of course — but it was confiscated before it could be opened.

Q’s been in and out of his room, but now that he’s out of immediate danger, Q Branch needs its Quartermaster, it would seem. When Q does come, he stands so as to block the camera’s view and slips his hand in James’, offering touches so innocent James wonders how much experience the man has. The kisses they’ve shared promise passion, but the almost shy looks he offers when others might be watching are telling, as well. Though his apparent innocence doesn’t stop Bond from noticing the cut of Q’s trousers as he leaves the room...

James is sore and battered and feels positively ancient, but he closes his eyes and remembers the kiss in the club — the near desperation of Q’s kiss when James first awoke, which has taken a dreamlike quality in his memory — and he feels an anticipation and impatience welling that he hasn’t felt in… well, a long time. It feels wonderful and dangerous, like a merry campfire in a too-dry forest: a strong gust from the wrong direction could spell glorious disaster.

So he waits. He suffers backless hospital gowns and terrible food and slowly becomes unplugged from various medical devices and monitors. The bullet graze in his shoulder is sore, but healing. Nothing is broken, so he just needs time for bruised ribs and a black eye and such to heal. Which means they take him off the _good_ pain medication within two days.

Which means he’s bored within three.

And like clockwork, in the middle of the fourth day, just as his boredom is becoming mind-numbing and his impatience with staff is growing unbearable — for them — a care-package arrives from Q Branch containing a tablet chock full of mission details, music, books, and films. A relieved air settles on the medical facility. There’s no text capability — he can’t harass anyone — but at least he has something to occupy his mind beyond BBC on the room’s telly.

On closer examination, the books include not just novels or military histories, but examinations of secret societies through the ages, cryptography, and symbology. And some look to be not proper electronic books, but digital scans of old books with yellowed pages and black-and-white photos. James wonders if this is somehow tied to the codes they’ve been tracking for the mission, but it doesn’t seem particularly related. Then he notices the photo app has one image loaded: the pendant he nicked off the dealer in Paris before the explosion. He’d forgotten it had these odd markings. It’s not as obvious as the Spectre symbol. It looks almost medieval… could be writing. He doesn’t even know if it’s relevant to the mission; it was just visible around the man’s neck when James was searching for his phone and seemed worth grabbing. If this is all Q’s way of asking for help deciphering it, though, he’s happy to have a useful task.

He’s been contentedly making notes for several hours when he looks up to see one of the scarier nurses come in.

“How are you feeling, 007?” She takes his chart from the end of the bed and looks it over. “Your last dose of pain medication was over four hours ago, you’re able to use the toilet on your own, and you ate all your lunch, I see.”

“Except the pudding,” Bond grates, annoyed at the necessity of these chats. “Please add that I don’t like canned pineapple to my chart. I’ve only been saying it for years now.”

She smirks as she makes the notation.

“I’m still stiff and sore, but nothing that requires constant medical attention, I think. I’d really apprecia—”

“Dr. Hasanain agrees,” the nurse interrupts, replacing the chart and folding her arms across her chest.

“She… she does?” An incredulous hope starts to build in his chest.

“Yes. You’re to be released, but only into someone’s care. You’re still too close to your concussion to be completely alone.” And the hope sinks, bitterly. Alec is back out on mission, and Bond has a reputation of being an _insufferable_ patient. Well earned, at that.

As resignation sets in, the door opens again to reveal Q pushing a wheelchair, the athletic bag from James’ locker draped across his shoulder.

“Pip pip, Bond. Let’s beat the traffic, shall we?”

“You’re releasing me?” he asks as Q dumps the bag on his lap.

“I had to beat off the other volunteers with a stick,” Q claims.

“Really?”

“No.”

The nurse looks wickedly amused, but Bond doesn’t even care. “I’ll go get his medications, Quartermaster,” she says. “And I’d keep that stick around, just in case.”

“When do we leave?” James asks as Q smirks at the nurse on her way out the door.

“As soon as you get off your arse and get dressed. I raided your locker and confiscated a tracksuit. It was that or a speedo.”

“A tracksuit will do,” Bond says, tossing the sheets off his legs. “And thank you for this,” he adds, handing Q the tablet. “It’s kept me sane today.”

“As it was intended. Do you need help?” he asks as James swings his feet over the edge of the bed.

“I’ll be fine,” he answers, making no effort to hide his bare arse as he retreats to the bathroom, hoping Q is ogling it as he’s been ogling Q’s.

He comes out of the bathroom five minutes later to find Q fiddling at his phone.

“Reception down here is terrible,” Q complains.

“Aye, it is. I don’t need the chair,” Bond says, glaring at it disdainfully.

“Oh, are you going to argue? I could call Nurse Ratched back and see what she thinks.” Bond grimaces. “Or you can come quietly and we can make our getaway. I’ve been out of the building exactly three times in the last nine days. I am rather looking forward to leaving.”

Bond sighs and sits in the chair, clutching the athletic bag and tablet to his chest as Q wheels him into the hall. They pick up the meds at the nurses’ station and an orderly escorts them down to the garage to return the chair. Bond suffers being wheeled in silence as they move down the hallway, into an elevator, and down to the garage, grateful that they don’t run into any other agents along the way.


	11. Summer, Part 2

 

James hums thoughtfully once he’s gotten settled in the passenger seat of the nondescript company car.

“What?” Q asks as he adjusts the mirrors.

“Was just hoping to find out what you drive.”

Q snorts and pulls out of the parking lot and heads across the Thames. “To work? Normally I take my motorcycle. I could have put the sidecar on for you, but where would we have put the luggage?”

James huffs a laugh, trying to imagine it. “So, you don’t have a car?”

“I never said that.” He turns an arched brow in Bond’s direction.

James laughs. “Difficult,” he mutters.

“And you’re one to talk.”

They’re silent for a while as Q navigates the afternoon traffic. He’s clearly comfortable behind the wheel, and James relaxes into the seat closing his eyes.

“How _do_ you feel?” Q asks quietly.

“Old,” Bond admits, “but otherwise fine. A few bruises. And I’m both tired and restless. But I feel better every mile we put between ourselves and the office. Sorry to be keeping you from the cats,” he adds, opening one eye to see if Q actually minds.

He has a soft little smile quirking at his lips. “They’ll be fine. Is there a spot in your garage I can use, or should I park on the street?”

“Try the garage. There should be space this time of day.”

They find a spot close to the elevators, and James lets Q help him out of the car, but then is able to walk on his own. He’s nearly winded by the time they get inside the flat, the bruises on the side of his body making breathing difficult. He leans against a chair as he watches Q bring in a suitcase, computer bag, and three bags of groceries.

“Okay?” Q asks, almost nervously. “I think… I’ll get these groceries put up and supper started, but if you want something first…”

He’s not sure if Q means it as a loaded question, but James immediately thinks of his fantasies while on mission and even last night in medical. Does he _want_ something? He does. But he’s also tired and smells of hospital, and they have time, judging from the size of Q’s bag.

“I think I’ll have a shower unless you need help finding anything in the kitchen.”

“I should be fine if you don’t mind me nosing about.” Q’s gaze darts to James’ chest. “Will you be… that is, are you strong enough to shower on your own?”

Oh god, Q’s actually blushing. Heaven help him. “Are you offering assistance?” James asks, biting back a smile.

“Dammit, James.” Q’s fluster is positively adorable. For a moment it’s almost hard to believe this is the same man who routinely helps him kill people in the field.

“I’ll be fine,” he says. “And please, make yourself at home in my kitchen or anywhere else. As for the shower, perhaps next time. I really do just want to wash the stench of ammonia off me. Though I may need your help dressing the stitches on my back.”

Q nods, still blushing but seeming settled.

James is stiff and moving slowly, and though he’s being efficient in the shower, it still takes much longer than usual for him to feel clean. He lingers under the spray, letting the hot water soothe sore muscles. If he were truly alone, he might allow himself an indulgent wank, but he’s honestly not sure he could keep his feet in his current state. Besides, the _real_ object of his desire is just in the other room. His Quartermaster and his friend, and perhaps his lover, if Q hasn’t changed his mind and James doesn’t scare him off…though the man has proven reasonably steadfast to date. And that is a charm all its own.

Anticipation coils just below James’ navel. It’s not merely because Q is lovely and lithe. He’s also wry and sharp. James likes the way his eyes light up when he’s sharing some esoteric fact about London history or music or firewalls or different types of ammunition. The man can find fascination in so many things. And James particularly enjoys when it’s turned to him. When Q’s eyes gleam because of something James has done or said. When his eyes linger on James appreciatively. He’s not sure what to expect of the next several days, but he allows that anticipation to seep through his body, warming him as much as the water.

James returns to the kitchen still damp and wearing sleep pants. Q’s making some beef dish with potatoes, almost like a thick stew, and the aroma has already permeated the air.

“How’s it coming?” James asks. “Smells bloody fantastic.”

Q looks up, doing a virtual doubletake on James’ bare chest. “Good. Just needs to simmer a bit. I know it’s early still, but I never got lunch and you’ve been eating god knows what in medical, and— oh, that looks _terrible_ ,” Q says as James rounds the corner and the bruising on his side becomes visible.

“It’s not as bad as it looks,” James assures him. “It’s not even as sore as it was. But, yeah, I’d prefer you not touch there,” he adds, curving away from Q’s outreached hand.

Q pulls back like he’s been burned, turning a chagrined grimace to Bond’s face.

“Anywhere else, Tom, I’d welcome it,” he says quietly, watching as that understanding settles in Q’s expression. Q doesn’t reach out again, so James adds, “If the meal can spare you a moment, I need help reaching the stitches on my back.” He holds out some ointment and bandages.

“Oh, of course. Let me just wash my hands.”

Q’s fingers are gentle as he spreads the ointment along the wound above James’ shoulder blade. “Does it hurt?” he asks.

“Not particularly. But it will if it gets infected.” James holds up lengths of surgical tape for Q’s use in securing the bandage.

“There,” Q announces as he finishes. “That should hold. It looks good, actually. Hardly red at all.”

“As good as future scars can look, then.” James debates donning a shirt, but rather likes the distracted glances Q gives his chest on his return to the kitchen to wash his hands again and deal with supper. James sits at the bar and watches as Q stirs the pot. It looks hearty. The sort of meal Kincade’s wife would have served him when he was running over the moors all day, but seasoned with a mixture of herbs Bond can’t quite place. “That smells wonderful,” James adds, his stomach actually growling for the first time in ages.

Q smiles. “It’s a very old recipe. Good food for healing,” he asserts, scooping some into a bowl and placing it in front of James.

“So,” James says, as Q settles at the bar next to him with his own bowl, “do I even want to hear the lengths you went to to pull my arse out of the frying pan?”

“No,” Q snorts. “Suffice it to say, I was lucky not to be brought up on charges, much less fired.” But James does manage to get some details out of Q as they finish their meal and clean up the kitchen together. How R’s work with the consulate eased tensions from Q’s impromptu redirection of a flight to get two agents James doesn’t even know into position to rescue him while a raid of three facilities took place simultaneously, one of them uncovering enough nuclear material for ten dirty bombs. How Q had the whole branch working for two straight days to get him out and then wouldn’t leave his side once he was in medical. As he finishes the story, James in equal awe of his devotion, ingenuity, and sheer balls, James can’t help but reach out for him, placing a hand on his hip that ends up slowing his words to a stuttering halt.

For a moment, they just breathe together. James raises his other hand to Q’s face and strokes his cheekbone as Q’s eyes flutter shut.

“I’ve never asked you,” James says softly.

“Asked me what?”

“If ‘Tom’ is the name you’d like me to use when we aren’t at work. You said it’s not what is on file with -6.”

Q’s eyes open slowly. “Ah, but I never said which name was correct,” he says with a soft smile. “MI6 has several of my aliases — I’ve been forced to reinvent myself a number of times.”

“Hmmm.” He wonders if Q was a hacker when -6 first brought him in. M — the former M — would occasionally recruit through rehabilitation, and Q is young enough for that to be plausible. “I’ll want to hear all about that, someday.”

“Then, perhaps someday I’ll tell you,” Q says, biting at his lip. “‘Thomas’ is the truest name I have. I like when you use it.”

“Good.” He continues stroking Q’s cheek, aware of the color rising there, the quickness of Q’s breath. “You’re nervous,” he concludes.

“A bit,” Q admits. “It’s been a long time for me, since I’ve…” He trails off.

James smiles. “I’m sure not much has changed since what? You joined MI6?” Romantic relationships often collapsed under the weight of the work schedule within the agency.

Q gives a little shake of the head.

“Your graduate program, then.” Q purses his lip. “Uni?”

“I’d really rather not go into specifics,” Q states.

“You’re right: it hardly matters. The important thing is, I’m very glad you’re here. And if you haven’t changed your mind on anything you said when I first awo—”

Q is kissing him. First tentatively, fingers trailing up James’ bare chest to his neck, then more passionately as James responds, wrapping his arms around Q’s back and pulling him close, feeling Q’s lithe body against him as they both grow hard. _Bloody hell_ , it feels perfect.

“James,” Q whispers against his lips, “if you are at _all_ healthy enough, take me to your bed right now.”

After one more amused kiss, James threads his finger through Thomas’ and leads him to the back of the flat.


	12. Summer, Part 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Earning that M rating...

 

He undresses Thomas slowly, unbuttoning his shirt to reveal a smooth, leanly muscled chest, not wholly unadorned with scars. Surprisingly broad shoulders are revealed as he pushes the rumpled shirt off and down Tom’s back, fingers trailing down his spine to a narrow waist. He takes some time tracing his fingertips along these new contours — waist, back, shoulders — as his mouth explores Tom’s cheek, his jaw, the juncture of his neck and shoulders. Tom nearly melts against him, and the sounds he makes…

Tom’s fingers aren’t idle either. They’re gingerly stroking up James’ back on his unbruised side, exploring his musculature like he’s a fine marble sculpture. James flexes under his touch, arching like a cat.

They separate enough for James to get his hands on Q’s belt, slipping the buckle lose as Q whimpers into his mouth. God, he’s lovely— toeing his shoes off as James unfastens his flies, no hint of the hesitation or shyness he’d felt before dinner until James tries to turn his back to the bed so he can push him down onto it.

“Wait,” Q breathes, and it takes all James’ restraint to still himself. Q’s fingers skim along his chest, over the bulk of his pectorals and down his stomach to the waist of his sleep pants. James allows his head to fall back as Q kisses his chest and drags his fingers along the soft fabric, tracing the outline of his erection, pressing in tighter until he’s stroking it slowly, learning its shape and weight, rubbing his thumb through the wet spot that’s spread on the fabric.

“Thomas,” James pleads, and in answer, Tom pulls the elastic waistband over his cock and lets the pants drop to the floor.

“Probably best for you to be on your back, this time. Don’t want to make your injuries worse. I promise I’ll let you fuck me into the mattress on another occasion.”

Bloody hell, who knew Q would have this mouth? He agrees, though, as much as he hates to admit it. The blood rushing south isn’t helping his stability at the moment. He lies down in the crisp white linens and palms himself as Q quickly removes the rest of his clothing and places his glasses on the nightstand. He’s a study in contrasts: pale delicate skin and dark glossy hair, green eyes almost unearthly without the filter of the prescription glass. He looks almost ethereal, but as he climbs on the bed and straddles James, he’s all warm and weighty reality.

Q leans forward on all fours, hovering over James and kissing him thoroughly. And fuck, he’s _really_ good at it — teasing and tasting and testing until he learns just what James likes. And James really likes pretty much all of it, the feel of Tom’s lips and the slide of his tongue and the way his fringe brushes down and tickles James face. The way his own hands are free to explore all that alabaster skin and sinewy strength until he knows the contours of Tom’s waist and flank, the strength in his thighs, the curve of his arse. Tom whimpers then, so James strokes his hand over it again and revels in the shudder of pleasure it produces.

“Come here,” James whispers, pulling Tom closer until their cocks brush. “There,” he says as Tom mewls. “That’s it.” He grasps Tom’s hip and rocks his so their cocks rub back and forth against each other, long and warm and silky smooth. “We can just do this if you like,” James says, wrapping his other hand around both of them. “Bloody hell, Tom, even dry, this feels amazing.”

Tom whines and kisses him hard, rocking with more enthusiasm. James digs his fingers into the flesh of Q’s arse, feeling the muscles swell and clench as he rocks. And _god_ he’s wanted Q so long he can hardly believe they’re actually here. Just as he thinks Tom may be past the point of no return, he tears his mouth away from James’ and pants above him, eyes wild.

“I need… I need—”

“What do you need, love?” James asks, still stroking them both.

Tom presses his arse into James’ other hand, spreading his legs more.

“This?” James asks, dipping his pinky finger down to brush against Q’s opening.

He shudders almost violently and nods.

“Top drawer,” James says, nodding at the nightstand.

Q stretches forward and to the left offering up new skin for James to explore as he rifles through the drawer. “Give me your hand,” Q says as he sits back on James’ lap, opening the tube and squeezing some out onto James’ fingers and then his own palm.

“Open me up?” he asks, leaning forward again and resting his mouth against the juncture of James’ neck and shoulder, making him shudder with both the request and sensation.

“With pleasure.”

He uses both hands, spreading Q’s arse with one and teasing the opening with the other. It doesn’t take long. Q is making the most delicious sounds and pushing back against James’ fingers, opening himself as much as James is opening him. He’s hot and tight and James can’t _wait_ to be buried in him. As he adds another finger, he feels Q’s slick palm slide against his cock and almost bucks Q off of him.

“We need a condom,” he maintains when he slides the second finger all the way in. _Christ_ , he needs it _right the bloody fuck_ now.

“No, we don’t.”

“Tom—”

“I have access to all of your medical records. You’re clean. And I’m clean, as well, and it’s been _ages_ and I just want… I need…”

 _Christ_ , when was the last time he had unprotected sex? They shouldn’t do this. But Q’s no one-night stand…

“You’re sure?” he finally asks.

“Just us. Just us, James,” he says through a kiss, giving James cock one last stroke and the scooting forward to line himself up. “No synthetic barriers.”

He feels his tip at Q’s entrance, feels Q tense, poised over him, waiting for James’ choice.

After a moment’s hesitation, he grasps Q’s hips with both hands and urges him slowly down onto his cock. Q keens a _yes_ into his mouth and he feels himself engulfed in tight, slick heat almost unbearably decadent. He’d forgotten it could feel this good. This hot. This…

Q sits up bracing himself on James' chest, and settles himself down the final inch, meeting James’ gaze. He looks utterly bare, his expression so vulnerable James aches with the emotion he sees there. James feels spellbound, frozen in a moment of pure connection — their bodies, yes, but also something else. Intention. Understanding. He’s not sure he’s experienced anything quite like it. And then Q raises himself a few inches and sinks back down slowly, indulgently.

And with a groan, James moves again. He grasps Q’s thighs, feeling them tense and flex as Q starts to ride him in earnest, rolling his hips as he moves, changing the angle James enters him until a look of utter bliss crosses his face. James tightens his hands, signaling that Q should hold still and thrusts up, earning a moan and another of those beautiful, blissful looks. And _fuck,_ he feels so good. James is no stranger to sex. Men… women. He’s lost count. But _this_ feels amazing. Making Tom look like _that_ feels amazing. And then… _and then_ … Q starts to...undulate. Rolling his hips and curving his spine and meeting James’ thrusts, And _fuck_ he’s not going to last. The sight of Tom… the _feel_ of him. The whole time he’s gazing straight into James’ eyes. Making James feel _seen_ in a way he rarely feels… or even desires. But as Q rides him, _sees_ him, he feels barriers he’s built up for years crumble. Because Q knows everything he is and still looks at him like _that._ It’s nearly enough to send him over.

He reaches for Q’s cock and starts stroking it. “C’mon, love. Tom. _Christ_ , you’re lovely. That’s it. That’s—”

Q cries out, his cock pulsing in James’ hand, painting come on James' chest, his arse clenching around James’ cock.

“That’s it, love. Oh, Christ.” Three more hard thrusts and James is coming deep inside Q, filling him in a way he hasn’t filled anyone in recent memory. It’s _primal_ , the way he feels. Q stills, panting and finally letting his eyes flutter closed as James cock pulses within him. And after a long suspended moment, he folds forward and kisses James breathless.

Eventually, Q eases off him with a wince and a rueful smile and collapses on the bed next to James. They breathe together for a while, recovering themselves while allowing this new state of residual connection to seep into their skin. James likes it: the feeling of Q’s breaths against his shoulder, the spice of his aftershave mingling with sweat and sex. The softness of his curls brushing James’ skin.

Wanting nothing more than to stay like this indefinitely, he reluctantly says, “I should go get us a flannel.”

“I will,” Q says, kissing his shoulder before rising. James feels him leave the bed, hears the water splashing in the bathroom. He’s nearly drifting off when he feels the warm flannel wiping at his chest, another placed in his hand so he can use it on his cock.

“There,” Q says, taking them both and tossing them onto the pile of dirty clothes on the floor. He hesitates, and James turns to look at him. “Do you want me here, or would it be better — with your injury — if I slept on the sofa?”

“Come to bed, Tom,” James says, pulling the covers up to cover them both. Q climbs in and settles next to James.

“Dream well, love,” James murmurs.

Just as he’s drifting off, he feels Q’s fingers thread through his own.


	13. Summer, Part 4

 

Q stays with him for the better part of the next week — long after the threat from the concussion has passed. It’s domestic in ways he wouldn’t have expected. Q, for instance, is an excellent cook, capable of making a variety of dishes originating from multiple cultures. But even the most familiar dishes — things that are clearly English in origin — seem exotic. They have subtle flavorings James has not had before, despite his travels. Combinations of herbs that go well beyond “Italian Seasoning” or “Herbs de Provence.” In fact, Q is so dissatisfied with the state of James’ pantry — actually saying the words “you know spices _do_ lose their potency over time,” words he never expected to hear from his boffin Quartermaster — that James utterly capitulates. He gives Q leave to stock up on whatever he likes and wakes up from one of his naps to find an extensive herb garden running the length of his otherwise austere, modern balcony. And somehow, it doesn’t seem out of place.

Q, unlike his spices, never seems to lose his potency. However long his dry spell may have been, he’s now apparently trying to make up for lost time. The man is utterly insatiable, stroking James’ leg as they eat their breakfast over the newspaper, lying his head in James’ lap as they watch telly, joining James in the shower. By week’s end, they’ve had sex in every room in the flat, multiple times a day. James is frankly a bit surprised he’s been able to keep up, but keep up he does. He feels a vitality he hasn’t felt in years. And it’s not just the bloody _fantastic_ sex or the fact that Q seems perfectly content to straddle him on the sofa, be bent over the bar, or suck him off in the club chair while he watches a film. It’s that they also laugh together so hard he cries and begs for breath. It’s the fact that Q leaves odd leather books about the flat like they’re dime-store novels, despite the fact he expects they’re collectors' items worth thousands of quid each. It makes the flat look homey and lived in in a way James’ possessions still don’t quite manage.

It’s an odd collection of books. Mostly poems. Q has an inordinate fondness of poetry. Christopher Marlowe is there, smuggled safely back from Q Branch, but so are Shakespeare, Lord Byron, John Keats, and E. E. Cummings. And there are books on networks and two computing journals. Light reading, he’s sure, sprinkled throughout the flat.

The close quarters allow for other observations. Q _hums_ when he cooks. James doesn’t notice at first, what with his frequent napping and Q’s near-constant exploration of James’ CD collection. But as James begins to spend more of the day in the sitting room, he starts to notice it more. And he also… could one call it dancing? He sways in time to the music as he stirs the pots or dices the fresh herbs. Judging from the enthusiasm of those sways, Q enjoys swing and big band just fine, bebop a bit more, and _really_ enjoys the jazz fusion of the late sixties and early seventies. Miles Davis’ “Bitches Brew” gets played often enough that James just gives Q the disk.

By the fourth day in, James is up and about and feeling well enough (and guilty enough) to cook. His pasta dish seems almost mundane compared to the dishes Q’s been making, but Q treats it as exotic and extols its flavor. They are both getting restless, and it’s time James starts physical therapy, so they go for an easy run through Hyde park. It’s verdant, and roses perfume the air, and Q matches him stride for stride. Though his body is still a bit sore, everything else feels right with the world.

That evening, after his shower, he finds Q cross-legged on the sofa accessing his work laptop.

“Am I losing you?” James asks, because really, he’s surprised he’s had the boffin all to himself this long.

“I won’t be misplaced, James. You’ll know right where I am. But yes, it appears I’m needed. 006 is headed back with new information, and R wants my input sorting it.”

“When?” he asks, trying not to be petulant and failing.

“Well, technically I’m meant to be on leave for another few days. Disciplinary, for not getting permission to go after you. M waited until the crisis was over to carry out my punishment—”

“Staying with me is punishment?”

“It may have backfired on M,” Q admits with a gleam in his eye. “Because it’s felt rather like a reward. Regardless, if he brings me back too early, the powers that be will think he’s soft. So I’m here one more day, probably working a fair amount via VPN, and then I’m to go in Friday.”

That’s not as bad as it could have been. “Can I do anything to help?”

Q hums. “I don’t really have my own head ’round the new data yet, so it’s difficult to pull off a chunk for you to work on. How have you done with the resources on the tablet?”

“I’ve barely looked at it since I left the hospital,” he admits. “Someone keeps distracting me.”

Q snorts softly and pats the sofa next to him. “If we’re both good and concentrate for the next few hours, perhaps I could find a way to distract you again, a bit later.”

So they work together, and James savors the camaraderie. When they go to bed, James savors that — the feel of Q in his arms as he drifts off, the weight of him, the sound of his breath. He doesn’t know when they’ll be able to do this again — or quite what _this_ even is — but he knows how fleeting such things can be and doesn’t take it for granted. He wants to memorize it all.

He wakes early after a night of fitful, unmemorable dreams to an empty bed. Donning his dressing gown, he pads into the sitting room to find Q tying his shoes.

“Going somewhere?”

“What are you doing up?” he asks, standing to give James a quick kiss. “Go back to bed. We’re out of eggs and there are a few other things I want to pick up. I’ll be back before you’re properly awake.”

“I’m awake now,” James insists. “I’ll come with you.”

“You’re grumpy. And still healing. Go back to bed. I’ll swing by the cafe and get your coffee on my way back.”

James grunts and retreats to the bed, unhappy with this turn of events and sure he won’t be able to sleep again.

He wakes up two hours later, having dreamt about clockworks and a strange tapping. Bright sunlight streams into the bedroom, along with the aroma of coffee.

When he enters the sitting room this time, he finds Q at the open panel of his security system. “You look better,” Q says as he comes into view. “I’m nearly finished with your upgrades.”

“I didn’t realize I was due any,” James says, walking over to the kitchen to get his coffee.

“Well, these aren’t necessarily _standard_ upgrades, but I feel a vested interest in keeping you safe. More so than usual,” Q admits with a smirk. “Nothing should appear different to you; it’s just more resistant to tampering and has an extra layer of perimeter alerts that will notify me if anyone is poking at it.”

“Whatever the Quartermaster says.”

They have a quiet breakfast and a noisy shower — god, he loves the sounds he can coax from Q — and settle into work on the sofa for a few hours, Q on his laptop and James on his tablet, sipping their respective hot drinks with music playing softly in the background. “Are these yours?” He finally asks after a few hours of listening to Q tapping on the computer

“Hmm?” He looks up from the data stream he’s been studying. “Are what mine? The books?”

“The scanned ones,” James clarifies. “They’re yellowed and look rare… the sort of thing you might collect,” he says, nodding at the Byron on the coffee table.

Q shakes his head. “I _know_ what’s in my books. I’ve checked. They won’t help. These are from the MI6 library. It was all scanned back in the nineties, thank goodness, since the originals were destroyed in Silva’s bomb. I just… I know I’ve seen those markings before, but not in this context. I don’t think it’s from the WWII archives. There are still people around who remember that war or its cold aftermath… it’s part of the culture. Enough of the records have been digitized and OCRed that the computer would have found a match. But the symbols from WWI are largely forgotten by the popular culture. I thought perhaps those old books would have something.”

“They’re fascinating, but no, nothing yet.” He hadn’t thought about what might have been lost in the blast other than the lives. How many treasures of intelligence had been lost? He’s so used to the idea that everything is backed up, even information he’d rather were private. “Where do you think you’ve seen it? On another pendant?”

“No… more like ink on paper. A bulletin or pamphlet, or a picture of one. Sorry, not very helpful.”

“It’s useful. It means it was in wider use than just jewelry. Maybe a way to hide in plain sight? Something that could be printed in public but only recognized by the initiated.”

“Exactly. But we don’t even know if it’s significant to the mission. People wear jewelry. It might not have had any significance to your mark. Or it could have had different significance. A gift from someone he cared for.”

Bond’s mind flashes to an overly bright Doctor Who scarf stuffed in the bottom of his sock drawer. “Maybe, but it’s as good a lead as any. I’ll keep looking.”

They work into the early afternoon, snacking on leftovers when they get peckish. James can feel himself slowly sliding into a funk, but Q is completely engaged in his work, eyes gleaming as he explains some detail of the new data that’s allowed him to make a connection. And he should absolutely not resent it. Q has saved his arse more times than he can count. His enthusiasm and curiosity are part of why he’s so good at his job, and a big part of why James loves him.

His mind stutters to a halt, and the tablet tips from his hand.

“James? Are you okay?”

“Fine,” he lies, swiping the tablet to get back to reading.

“You sure? What are you reading?” Q looks at the tablet, assessing. “I really don’t think it’s a book cipher.”

“I agree,” James says, ears buzzing slightly.

“Truly, you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Vesper’s ghost. The ghost of lovers past and their betrayals. He shouldn’t put that on Q. They’re just beginning, but James suddenly feels too exposed. Maybe it’s best that Q is leaving tonight. What if James is once again taking things more seriously than his partner? It hasn’t felt like that, but… “I’m fine,” he repeats, and Tom is clearly having none of it, but lets it go.

After another hour, Q stands and stretches, and James knows their time together is over. For now, at least. It makes him a bit forlorn, which he tries to hide as Q collects his things and packs up his computer bag.

“Sure you can’t stay for dinner?” he asks, though he’s honestly not sure that would make things easier.

“No...I need to be in early and I need to get some things from home. And I’ve been neglecting the cats for a week. If I’m scratched up when you see me next, you’ll know it didn’t go well. Will you be in?”

“I’ll call into medical and see where we go from there,” he says, making no promises either way.

Q gathers his bags together and lingers by the door. “You have loads of leftovers—”

“I’ll be fine, Tom. I did live nearly four decades without you watching over me,” Q gives him an odd look. “I appreciate it,” he assures, “But you really needn’t worry.”

“Hmmm.” Q looks down awkwardly. “Well, I’d best be off then. Dream well.” He gives James a very sweet kiss, just this side of warm enough that James wants to drag him back to the bedroom. He wraps his arms around Tom and savors the closeness. It definitely doesn’t taste like goodbye, but James wonders if they’ll ever really recapture what they’ve had these last few days once they are back in the real world. Q ends the kiss sooner than James would like, but he doesn’t fight it. “Oh, and I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve left a few things.”

James pulls back so he can see Q’s face. “What things?”

Q shrugs. “Just a few items that will make it easier next time we decide I should spend the night. If they’re in your way, just toss them.”

“I’m sure they’re fine,” he says, a bit confused,

“Okay. Well, I may see you in the branch, tomorrow. Don’t forget your appointment at medical.”

James rolls his eyes, but smiles. “You worry too much.”

“I worry exactly the right amount,” he responds with a smirk. He gives James one more kiss and is gone.

The flat feels empty and quiet when Q’s left, but James is used to it. He sighs and resigns himself to a lonely night. That’s when he notices the small delicate ring of knotted wire hung above the door, all the way to the left… and another on the right, above the hinge. Brows furrowed, he goes to the balcony door and finds another pair...and a pair over the sitting room window… They’re too small to be decorative. All he can think is that this will be part of Q’s security upgrades and they aren’t connected yet — or are part of some wireless tech he’s not familiar with?

He checks the rest of the flat and finds them over the window in the bathroom — where he also spies Q’s toothbrush and razor in a cup by the sink — and the bedroom.

Where he spies a book that isn’t his on the nightstand. It’s a fairly modern one, compared to some Q carries around, but a first edition, because of course it is. _Complete Poems: 1904-1962_ by E.E. Cummings. There’s a bookmark, and the book falls open [to](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?volume=99&issue=2&page=10)

without the mercy of

your eyes your

voice your

ways (o very most my shining love)

how more than dark i am 

Bond isn’t much for poetry, but he bites back a smile because _this_ even he can understand: Q is telling him he isn’t alone in the revelation he had on the sofa. He isn’t alone, and this is far from over. He scours the flat and finds all the things Q left behind: his favorite tea, a small bag of toiletries and a change of clothes in a cabinet in the loo. And this poem.

James grins, rolls his eyes at his own utter ridiculousness, and decides he’s hungry for dinner after all.

The next three months are the happiest in his life. He has purpose: he’s on mission more often than not, chipping away at the network they’ve discovered. Despite his mishap on the last mission, his identity wasn’t compromised, and Narek’s father seems to have vouched for him, giving him better access to parts of the web than he did before. And he gets shot at less. He makes occasional visits to Armenia to give Narek new music and strengthen his ties to the boy’s father, who seems to be only one of several arms suppliers in the web. Considering that his alias is “in”, MI6 is waiting to bring someone in for questioning until it’s worth sacrificing Bond’s connections with the dealer. Alec is busy doing the same in Crimea with a supplier smuggling things from Russia, and Q Branch is trying to make sense of the codes and connections.

But the best of all — better than having Q in his ear when on mission or a sense of purpose or a schedule that keeps his adrenalin-addicted heart jumping — is that when he is on British soil, it’s in a warm bed. Q has all but moved in, keeps a list of restaurants for them to try, even drags Bond to the theater to see a revival of _Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead_ , which Bond has to admit was very funny.

London is warm, the days are long, the nights are passionate, and they are getting closer to the spider at the center of a complex web. It’s really more than an old spy can hope for.

He should have known it would all go to shite.


	14. Autumn, Part 1

__

 

_...But Time which nature doth despise,_

_And rudely gives her love the lye,_

_Makes hope a foole, and sorrow wise,_

_His hands doth neither wash, nor dry,_

_But being made of steele and rust,_

_Turnes snow, and silke, and milke to dust._

_Oh cruell Time which takes in trust_

_Our youth, our Joyes, and all we have,_

_And payes us but with age and dust,_

_Who in the darke and silent grave_

_When we have wandred all our wayes_

_Shutts up the story of our dayes._

_Sir Walter Raleigh, 1552–1618_

 

It starts with small things, as suspicion often does. He doesn’t have an “aha moment” as he did with Vesper, fooled until the betrayal — or protection if that’s what it was — was complete. And he doesn’t want to suspect Q. He wants to linger in this bliss of passion and work and camaraderie and domesticity. He wants to appreciate Q’s lovely body and clever mind and enjoy the way Q looks at him like he’s the most spectacular thing in the world.

But he’s a spy, dammit, and when things don’t quite add up, he notices. And his mind starts to worry at that little niggle of disquiet, seeing more and more. And he _knows_ he’s cagey because of his past experiences. He knows this could all just be his own paranoid mind making linkages where none exist, seeing secrecy and imagining the worst possible reason for the concealment… not just privacy or shyness, but duplicity, when it could just as easily be Q’s natural tendency to not share what isn’t needed. And Q is Quartermaster, bound to secrecy about so many things he makes double-oh agents look like exhibitionists.

But after months of dating the man, he’s noticed changes, and what hasn’t changed. He sips at his airline scotch and ponders their relationship as lightning flashes through the clouds outside the plane window.

It’s perfect in many ways. He knows that’s part of his problem, crazy as that sounds. He’s so used to not being accepted for who he is — for his work, for his violence, for the seductions he attempts for queen and country — that he finds the acceptance both a relief and suspicious. And, ironically, he finds any lack of acceptance equally suspect.

He grimaces at the drink. It’s amazing anyone can put up with him.

He’s been out on mission so much that they’ve rarely gotten three days together in months. In person, at least. When he’s on mission, Q is more often than not in his ear. Q’s even helped with the seductions, which Bond had floundered at awkwardly the first time after that remarkable week of Q. He’d managed to get the blonde in Budapest into her hotel room, but then… it was like he’d forgotten what to do with her. He was all thumbs and so awkward he’d lost his erection until Q started whispering filth in his ear. He ended up fucking her into the mattress, leaving her well-satisfied, asleep, and short the thumb drive shaped like a vape pen she’d stored in her purse. After that, any worry that Q resented his activity when on mission disappeared.

But when Q’s not on comms — when James asks for him and hears Q isn’t available, he notices. August 1, when he’d wanted to surprise Q with an early 3-month anniversary “date” over comms before he went fully undercover again, Q wasn’t available. It was a Wednesday, and Q wasn’t covering another mission. He was on leave again, though R didn’t know where or with whom, and James didn’t want to press it. The branch seems aware of their relationship, but if it appears to be interfering with either of their work, it will become a problem.

That was seven weeks ago. When he’d returned from mission, he’d confronted Q, feeling awkward and overbearing. Q didn’t even seem to remember having it off, but then said an old colleague had been in London on business, and they’d met for drinks. It was...it was plausible but felt a lie.

And then there’s the fact that they always stay at James’ flat when he’s back in London. Q always has a bag packed, ready to come home with him, let him sleep in his own bed surrounded by his own things after so long on the road. At first, James thought it was sweet and considerate of him — and he really did appreciate being in his flat after being away — but lately, it feels more like Q is avoiding taking James to his home...the old building with working cats. And of course, the Quartermaster’s address _is_ classified. It would be perfectly reasonable to just say that he can’t bring James to his. But they never discuss it, and Q seems to trust him with other odd bits of information. So it feels notable.

Q shares his favorite restaurants, theater, concerts, but little about his history. He’s told stories about his days at uni and post-graduate work. To James’ shame, he actually checked to see if the information was authentic, which it was — making him feel like a _complete_ heel. But when he asks about Q’s childhood or family, it’s all vagueries except to say he’s alone in the world.

Which is fine, really. Alec is much the same, and James rarely talks about his parents, even to Q. It just feels… for someone who knows so much history, Q seems to live wholly in the present tense, unlinked to the past or any sort of distant future. Which James imagines might be typical of young people… he was more like that when he was in the Navy and trying to forget his painful past. If Q runs from his own just as much, who is James to judge?

He sighs at himself. He hates when his mind goes in circles. It almost always means he’s fixated on nothing. Or he’s missing some vital piece of information. Which brings him to the woman. James was running through Hyde Park two weeks ago during lunch when he saw Q arguing with a woman in a black suit, her blonde hair pulled back austerely. And he _knows_ he’s seen her before, but he can’t place where. He’s racked his brain about women at MI5 that may be assisting with the Tube search, women he’s met (or seduced) while on mission over the last few months. Nothing feels right. And he could just _ask_ Q — who knows, maybe she’s his landlady — but for being in public, the meeting had a clandestine feel. And he’s enough of a spy that he doesn’t want to tip his hand.

And there’s something almost desperate in Q of late. Especially when they’re alone together at night. Q’s always been passionate and intense in everything he does, but especially sex. It’s beautiful. Intoxicating. But lately, there’s an edge to it. A ferocity. Like Q is afraid this will be the last time. Bond knows that edge.  Knows that need to experience everything because he’s about to do something _truly_ dangerous that he might not return from. Feeling that from Q is disquieting, and makes him both want to comfort him and shake him — ask what the _hell_ is going on.

The plane lands in a drizzling rain, 3 p.m. local. He’s exhausted, but won’t sleep anyway, so he heads to MI6 to deliver the data and tech and see what he’s missed. After a brief check-in with M, he heads down to Q Branch, finding Q and Alec standing side by side, examining the extensive chart of connections and people they’ve been mapping for months. The spiderweb, as they call it.

He feels irritation at seeing them together, and then guilt as both their faces light up upon seeing him.

“James!” Alec calls, offering a hand to shake and then pulling him into a warm one-armed hug. “Do you have something to help us make sense of this?” he asks, nodding at the electronic whiteboard. “Q’s going grey trying to suss it out.”

“I’m not,” Q protests. “It is proving vexing, though. Welcome home, Bond,” he says, always proper when in the branch, but with a warmth in his eyes that makes James feel all the guiltier for his thoughts on the plane.

“Thank you. Here,” he says, handing over a tablet. “See if this will help. I tried to make notes about which code words this group uses. Do you still think the code is morphing? I feel like this lot used something close to the original we heard in France.”

“I’ll let Katie work with it and see what she comes up with.” Q studies him, and James chafes under the scrutiny. “Pleasant flight?” he asks, and James sees through the innocent question to the observations Q’s made: Bond is sleep-deprived and grumpy.

“Turbulent,” he says brusquely. “Sorry,” he adds as both their faces fall. “I’m a bit tired.”

“Well, come with me and we can get your tech checked in.”

James follows Q into his office, both relieved and annoyed when Q shuts the door. The privacy setting is already active on the glass. He wants to kiss him, and he wants to shout at him, though he can’t really say why. He goes to the workbench and starts handing over the tech, including his Walther and ammunition.

“It’s sticking,” he says, nodding at the gun. “Not always, but… I cleaned it in the field and it didn’t help.”

“We’ll give it a thorough refurb before we sign it out to you again,” Q assures, checking off everything else. Only one item missing, and Q doesn’t even snark about it. “So what’s wrong?”

Bond sighs. He really doesn’t want to do this here. “Just tired.”

Q watches him for a long moment, and for once James understands how it unnerves some people.

“Do you want to head back to your flat now and let the mission report wait for tomorrow? I could follow in about two hours. Assuming I’m welcome…”

James shakes his head. He doesn’t want them to be like this. For months now, Q has discreetly taken his hand, even offered him a quick kiss in the privacy of his office. He’s never shown any doubt about his status with James, even when the mission involved seductions. And now James has made him wary. “I don’t need special treatment.”

“I gave you relief from same-day mission reports before we were involved,” Q notes. “It’s not special treatment.”

“I’m fine. I just… find me a quiet corner of Q Branch to work in and I’ll finish it up.”

Q looks skeptical. “Did something happen since we spoke. It seemed the mission had gone we—”

“The mission went fine. I’m just tired and thought too much on the plane.”

“About?” Q asks, and James both hates and loves the caution in his voice.

He’s being petulant. He knows he is. And he’s likely sabotaging the best thing that’s ever happened to him, but he can no longer risk being a fool.

“Are you married?”

Q freezes. “I’m sorry, am I _what_?”

“Married, Thomas.”

Q looks owlishly. “You mean other than to my work? Are you joking?”

“Sadly, no. We’ve dated for months, and I’ve never been to your flat, you’re cagey about even saying where it is, I catch you lying to me on a regular basis, and I saw you arguing with a woman in Hyde Park two weeks ago. And there are certainly many potential explanations, but that’s one of the more charitable ones I can come up with.”

The protests on the tip of Q’s tongue disappear at the mention of the woman, and he blanches. “You saw her?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re just mentioning this now?” he asks incredulously.

“I _was_ heading out on mission, and trying to convince myself it wasn’t important. Clearly, that’s not the case.”

“Did she see you?” Q asks, panic making his voice go high.

“No.”

“Are you _sure_?”

“Who is she Q? If not a wife, then who? I know I’ve seen her before, but I cannot remember where.”

Q closes his eyes and takes a few steadying breaths. When his eyes open again, they look unfathomably weary. “She’s the most dangerous person in all of Britain, perhaps the world, and I’ve worked very hard to make sure she’s not aware of our relationship. Please don’t go looking for her.”

James scoffs. “I’ve known a lot of dangerous people in my life.”

“Not like her,” Q insists.

“Who, Thomas? And don’t lie to me.”

Q nods, glancing at the door and biting his lip. He’s not Q at the moment. He doesn’t have any of Q’s poise. He’s… he’s _terrified_... “She’s… I’ve told you: I’ve been forced to reinvent myself.” Bond nods. “She’s an old associate, more tightly woven into a previous life. Someone I’d very much like to separate my life from, but clean breaks can be difficult. We were never involved romantically. I’m not… I love _you._ ”

James sags with relief, but of course, that leads to other, more problematic scenarios.

“Are you compromised? Are your loyalties split? Please tell me I’m not going to get an order from M to kill you.”

“Nothing like that. M — M the former — knew some of what was involved and pardoned my involvement as a condition of my coming to work for MI6. This M...I don’t know how much he knows, what’s in our M’s files that he might have seen. But I swear, James, I’m loyal to Britain, and I’m loyal to you.”

His face is pleading, but his eyes are completely sincere. This may not be the whole truth, but it’s not a lie. James nods, feeling the weight of his suspicion lift, and Q nearly goes limp with relief.

“James,” he whispers, closing the distance between them, fingers scrabbling at James’ waist as James cups his face and kisses him in relief. After a few moments, Q pulls away. “Sorry,” he whispers, looking at the door.

James huffs a rueful laugh. “The longer we’re in here, the more Alec and Katie will gossip.”

“Quite.”

“And the sooner I let you go back out there, the sooner we can go home. Maybe I should go to the flat ahead of you, after all.”

Q bites his lip again. “If you can wait an hour, we can go home together. To my home. You’ll have to drive, though; I took the Tube.”

James’ stomach flips in anticipation. “Are you sure? I feel like I’m manipulating you.”

“You are a bit,” Q acknowledges, “but just on the timing. I’ve thought about it so many times before, but it always seemed easier to go to yours. It’s just likely to create… complications.”

“Life is complicated,” James counters.

“It is indeed.”


	15. Autumn, Part 2

 

 

“Turn here,” Q says, leading James through Shoreditch. Soon, a squat, half-timber building comes into view.

“That’s Lulu’s pub,” James remembers.

“Indeed. She’s asked about you, actually. Turn here.”

They’re going down the street they’d walked along all those months ago.

“This is where I parked,” James muses. “You disappeared.”

“I did what?” Q asks, fiddling with a tablet. A gate in the wall swings open. “Pull in here.”

James enters what appears to be a deep garage built into the stone wall. “You… I looked down for a moment putting things into the car, and when I looked up, you were gone from the street completely. I thought you’d teleported somewhere, or more likely that I’d had more scotch than I realized.”

“If _only_ I had that power,” Q laughs. “You were parked in front of my gate. I just walked in when your head was turned.”

James looks in the rearview mirror, watching the garage door close, noting the smaller door for pedestrians built into it. It’s completely plausible. He’d untangled himself from that ridiculous scarf, put the scotch in the car… it was enough time to get through a door without even rushing.

“What is this place? When we were walking, I assumed the wall surrounded a cemetery or churchyard.”

“You’re not far off,” Q says, collecting his bags. “Come on. I’ll show you.”

They exit the car, and James finds himself in a long building. It’s dark, but he can see a shop of sorts to his left and several vehicles parked ahead of him.

“The garage isn’t original, obviously. The wall just had a gate for accessing the property, but it was easy enough to build something abutting the wall and utilizing the gate opening for the door. I had to make them look like carriage doors, but anything behind the wall could look as modern as I liked, which was liberating, considering the restrictions on the house,” Q explains as they pass two motorbikes — one with a sidecar — and a sports car that looks like—

“This is a Jaguar XK120,” James says incredulously.

“Good eye,” Q says with pride. “A 1948.”

“It’s original? Not a replica?”

Q nods. “I’ve refurbished her myself.”

“It _runs_?”

“Beautifully,” Q asserts. “She doesn’t have the power of your Aston Martin, but she can still get to 120 miles per hour… just takes her a while to get there... And the wood is refinished, but original. She’s the original open seater, so I don’t get much chance to drive her. I just stretched her out for the last time this season, before the rains set in in earnest again. Most of the time, I drive the Mini,” he says, nodding to the car parked in the corner. “More practical in the city, and less likely to attract attention.”

This is all more revelation that James had expected from the garage. He’s a bit speechless.

“What, I’m only allowed to build cars for you?”

“I just didn’t realize you had an interest in owning them,” James stammers.

“We all need our hobbies,” Q quips, opening a door at the far end of the garage. “Let’s see the house, shall we?”

They exit the garage into a small yard of 100-year-old oak trees and a half-timber house, illumined with orange late-afternoon sunlight streaming through copper leaves of autumn, still wet from the earlier rain. Small. But still, a _house_. In central London.

“What _is_ this place?”

“It was the rectory for St. Leonards before they rebuilt on Hackney in 1650. The Church of England was consolidating its holdings and sold this property to buy a lot adjoining the Hackney location and rebuild a grander church. We bought it.”

“This has been in your family since _1650_?”

“It’s been a Lane holding since then, yes.” Q unlocks the front door, surprisingly with an actual iron key, but James supposes when you have a foot-thick wall around your house, extensive electronic security might be superfluous,

“So, you’re not a Lord or something?” James asks, just to be sure.

“No,” Q snorts. “My father was a merchant.”

“A businessman?”

“Right. A businessman. Importer. And my uncle was a banker. And here we are,” he continues with a flourish. “Home sweet home.”

It’s...well, it’s amazing. Tidy, but full to the brim. Books nearly everywhere: case after case of books. The ceiling is low and the windows are small, but it doesn’t feel dark, cream walls keeping the room warm and bright. A mahogany baby grand piano sits in the corner with sheet music splayed across the stand. The furniture is dark wood and leather, and carpets of red and gold and blue interrupt the dark wood floors. Everywhere, there are little mementos of a life well-lived. Little frames of art and figurines and odd bits of nature — it’s like walking into a grandparent’s house, or Kincade’s cottage when his wife was still alive. Except there are also odd bits of tech about. A tablet on the side table, a flat-screen tv mounted above the fireplace, and very nice speakers scattered about the shelves.

Q is watching him, nervous until James smiles in approval of the place.

“I’ll get some supper going, shall I?” Q asks, setting his computer bag on the small entry table. “I made rabbit stew last night... Will that do, or would you prefer some pasta? I think I have some penne. Oh, and a drink… Would you like a scotch? Or… I might have some wine in that cabinet,” he says, nodding to the corner if the room.

“I like your stews, and it will go well with a scotch. Also in that cabinet?” James asks, crossing the small room.

Q nods. “There should be glasses too. If they’re dusty, bring them into the kitchen, and I can wipe them off.”

He disappears into what James assumes is the kitchen. James opens the cabinet to find a collection of scotches, ports and red wines, some decades old. He wipes two cut-crystal tumblers with a cloth he finds tucked into the corner of the shelf and pours them each two fingers. He takes a sip and groans with pleasure. At the Savoy, this might be 100 pounds a pour. At Thomas’ house, it’s going to accompany rabbit stew, apparently. Yet somehow, that seems perfect. He sets the tumblers on the small table by the window.

“There’s an iPod on the shelf that will play music through the speakers, if you like,” Q calls from the kitchen.

James examines the shelves as he hunts for the iPod. The books are organized by subject: literature, history, science. There’s a whole section on multidimensional physics. He finds the player and starts the music, then picks out “Hidden Reality” from the physics section, thumbing through it curiously. It seems an odd thing for Q to have. He thinks of Q as an engineer first and scientist second. He’s used to Q thinking about tangible, practical things, not interdimensional physics and multiverses. He puts the book away, noting the small frame on the shelf as Q comes in with two steaming bowls of stew. A small, Elizabethan portrait that looks very much like Q.

 

“An ancestor?” James asks, taking one of the bowls.

“What? Oh. Hmmm. Quite the resemblance, isn’t it? Can you grab napkins out of the kitchen? I forgot them.”

Dinner is delicious, and now that James isn’t distracted by what Q might be hiding from him, he can talk about the mission with equanimity. They discuss Katie’s progress with the code, potential next steps, the mystery of the pendant. It’s relaxing. And there’s something about seeing Q in this place that makes him... make more sense. Like cogs slipping into place. It’s comforting in some ways, and disquieting in others. The longer he stays in Q’s little house, the safer he feels. And yet the less grounded in reality. Like he’s unmoored from the world. He once thought that Q lives in the present tense, only in the moment. But sipping scotch and laughing with the man in these surroundings, it almost feels like he lives in all times at once, equally comfortable with old recipes and books, new music and tech, and everything in between. His library isn’t _just_ old; the physics book James examined was published this year. It’s more that for certain topics, there’s a comprehensiveness to the collection that spans a great deal of time. As if his family has been collecting them since they first bought the place, antique leather-bound tomes aside new hardcovers with paper jackets. Time hasn’t stood still here, but it also hasn’t moved on and forgotten what came before, as so often seems the case.

They wash up after dinner, and then Q asks, “Do you need anything before bed?”

“Need anything?”

“A shower? Another drink?”

James thinks a moment. “I suppose I need a shave…”

Q smirks and takes James by the hand. “Not for bed, you don’t.”

They make love in Q’s four poster bed. James covers Q’s body and sinks into it, and it feels like coming home. Afterward, as James is drifting off to sleep with Q’s head resting on his chest, he hears, “I don’t _want_ to lie to you ever, about anything. But sometimes I need to. To protect you.”

James squeezes Q tighter and then lets his fingertips trace up and down Q’s arm. “We’re both spies,” he starts. “Lies can be necessary. I know I’m being hypocritical. I don’t share much about my past. If you asked about it I might lie or change the subject because it’s painful, and I don’t want to waste time with you on painful things.” He combs his fingers through Q’s curls and kisses the top of his head. “I just really dislike lies from you. Just… if you can’t tell me something, say so, and I’ll let it go.”

Q snorts.

“I’ll try to let it go,” James corrects, because Q’s right, he can be like a dog with a tick when he thinks someone is keeping something from him: digging when it only hurts himself.

After a long pause he hears, “Okay,” and he lets sleep take him.

The next day they enter the branch together and get to work, James on his mission report, Q on the data R had pulled from James’ disk overnight. While the mission was a success, the data doesn’t seem to be clarifying the picture of the network. If anything, the more information they have on who is buying and selling to whom and which code which players are using, the more convoluted it seems. They have it laid out on a map, color-coded for the version of the code being used and the date, since they believe the code is morphing in real time and are trying to ascertain _how_ so they can eventually get to _why_. It’s a bloody mess, to be honest. Too complicated to make any sense. Q is clearly getting frustrated, and that desperation James has been sensing is back. Alec is there too, ready to be sent back out, if only Q knew where to send him. They go over the web together as James grabs his tablet and finds a quiet corner to read the next book on his list: Societies of Paris. He’s been reading for an hour when Katie approaches.

“Boss, you got a mo?”

“Ms. Callahan,” he acknowledges without turning from the map. “What’s on your mind?”

“Have a look at this?” She holds out a tablet with two columns of text highlighted.

Q studies it for a moment and then looks up at her, shocked. “What’s this from?”

“I was helping Marcus track Gab, tracing those trolls, and I started noticing some of the phrases are the same. Birthright and Sons of the Temple and all that. The code doesn’t use the really obvious stuff, so we didn’t see it at first. We’ve been focused on the Islamic origins for the code, thinking it’s morphing, but what if—”

“What if they’re playing both sides against each other?” Q asks, catching on to Katie’s line of thought sooner than James can. “Buggering hell, I’m an idiot. Do you have IPs for this lot?”

“Marcus is working on it, but they’ve bounced the signal all over the place. It might be a bit before he reaches the cradle. Could be Russian,” she suggests.

“That would make sense if all the arms were coming from Moscow, but they aren’t. Still, it’s a place to start. Are you checking the other sites? Voat? Infogalactic?”

Bond looks at Alec to see if he understands any of this. Alec just shrugs and shakes his head.

“I can start now,” Katie says. “With your permission, I’d like to bring Dina and Anu in. For PewTube we’ll need someone just watching loads of videos. It will take a while.”

“I’m sorry,” James interrupts, “what’s happening? What’s Voat?”

Q raises a finger at him without looking. “Pull them in, and grab Sumit, too, maybe Jon… what they’re working on isn’t as time-sensitive as this,” he tells Katie. “Get them started and come back to me. I’ll need your help reclassifying all of these connections.”

She nods. “What are you thinking?” she asks, almost as focused as Q.

“We’ve been making this more complex than it might actually be,” he says ruefully. “We think we have one code morphing into another form, but what if it’s been two all along? Let’s not look for time-sensitive evolution. Let’s just divide them into their two types and map them, and map the contacts that use both, and whom they use them with.”

“On it, boss.”

“How long do you think?” Q asks as she starts to back away toward her desk.

She shrugs. “It’s a lot of data. A week?”

Q nods. “I’ll help once I get some other things in motion. And Ms. Callahan. Good work.”

She positively beams.

Q turns to James and Alec. “We routinely monitor alt-right social media sites… places where “free speech” wins out over hate speech limitations, and entitled farts complain about “white genocide” because a Moroccan restaurant opened on their village corner, supplanting their favorite fish-and-chips place. Activity’s been on the uptick since Brexit, and there are occasional calls for violence against the PM. It’s easy to laugh about, but they _can_ incite action. Trolls often post or comment from outside the country and rile up the locals. It’s all basically unregulated, so long as advertisers are happy. And its happening everywhere: America, here, Europe. Marcus and Katie have discovered some of the phrases from our code are showing up amongst these trolls, meaning—”

“That while we’ve been focused on potential Islamic terrorists, we should have been watching for white supremacists,” Bond finishes as Alec offers a low whistle in response.

“More likely, we should be doing both. The code is definitely showing up on the Islamic sites. If Katie’s right, my hunch is that someone is stirring up fear on both sides and then selling them arms to kill off each other.”

“Good business strategy,” quips Alec.

“Except for those caught in the cross-fire,” James adds.

“Quite. Bond, as you’re looking through those old books, can you focus on race-inspired societies? There’s was a lot of hubbub in France and Britain when America sent over its all-black battalions in the Great War. Maybe some disgruntled natives formed their own social networks, old-style.”

“I’ll see what I can find.”

It takes them two solid weeks of work to reclassify the data, reconfigure the map, and chase down the trolls’ IP addresses. James finds the symbol by the end of the first week, after Q’s loaded several new (old) books onto his tablet. La Confrérie du Temple, who see themselves as direct descendants of the Knights Templar and don’t seem aware that the Crusades are long over.

The map blossoms like two overlapping flowers, one in blue, featuring the Islamic-based code, and another in red, featuring the alt-right code. And in the center, in purple, is Paris.

“I think in your first encounter with them, you might have witnessed a double-cross. Those weapons had been meant for one side, and Boudin was trying for a higher price with the other side,” Q says to James and they go over the contacts with Alec.

“Maybe so, but Francois Boudin was killed that night.”

“But his brother wasn’t,” Q counters, swiping a new window onto the large display at the front of the room. “Jean-Michael Boudin. Brother of Francois, inheritor of his empire, and operator of the troll aliases LCT01, WhiteisRight, and Allahson2018. Currently, at least. We expect he cycles through them.”

“Clever,” Alec muses.

“So he thinks,” Q agrees. “I don’t give him good odds against my two best double-ohs, though.”

“You’re sending us both?” Alec asks. James is surprised, too. They nearly always work alone.

“Time is of the essence,” Q asserts. “It will probably take the two of you a week’s reconnaissance to map his movements and more time to plan a way to grab him discreetly.”

“We’re bringing him back?” James asks.

“Yes,” Q says, “quietly enough that his network doesn’t go to ground immediately. We still suspect something will happen at Embankment, and we haven’t found all the nuclear material that’s rumored on the dark web. We need to question him. I’ll prepare a cell in the meantime, modified from the one we used for Silva.”

That sparks a red flag in James’ mind, but Q continues before he can ask. “I’ll have both of your trackers activated, in case you run into trouble. R and Katie will be running opps since I’ll be prepping the cage and coordinating with M and MI5.”

James doesn’t like it, but won’t second guess Q in front of his staff. “And your tracker?”

“R and Katie will be tracking me as well,” Q acknowledges. “Just in case.”

“Sounds fun,” Alec says. “When do we start?”

And so they are whisked into the bowels of the Branch to get their gear, a _very_ nice car, and enough recon equipment to bug every room in a mile-radius of Jean-Michael’s Paris abode. Q offers James one last heated kiss in the privacy of his office, saying, “Bring him back to me.”

James leaves with a purpose and a sense that he’s hurtling toward something unknown and dangerous. Q’s been almost single-minded since they discovered the brother. Passionate at home, insisting they go back to the half-timber when they leave the building at all, but so driven at work that he’s lost almost all his humor. Maybe James is always just on mission when Q gets like this. The minions take it in stride, but it feels different to James. More like that desperate edge he’s noted on and off, but with fiery purpose. A Hail Mary, as the Americans would say.

He has a task though, so he sets his worries and suspicions aside. As October dawns, he and Alec drive underground, underwater, and rise again on France’s shores.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to both Nicholas Hillard (deceased) and @10kiaoi for the fic inspiration and the lovely art to include for the readers. The whole story of how I came to have an Elizabethan Portrait of Q can be found here: https://ato-the-bean.tumblr.com/post/179627816885/authors-note-on-researching-a-price-most.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	16. Autumn, Part 3

 

They are nothing but efficient. Even so, it takes weeks, just as Q predicted. Jean-Michael is more vigilant than his brother was — more paranoid — and it takes a careful closing of a trap, laying in wait for hours before springing it, knocking him out with some concoction of Q’s and ferrying him back across the border in the trunk. The last part of the plan is not normally sanctioned, but M got it allowed when the French _Police Nationale_ realized what had been happening under their noses.

And so it was that M, Alec, James, and Q watched on as Jean-Michael awoke in a plexiglass cage, cursing in French.

“So, this is the little bugger that’s been running us ragged?” M asks in his most unimpressed voice.

“It is, Sir,” Q answers pushing his glasses up his nose. “We give him up in four days. All questioning will be done in here, as you negotiated with France.” Q’s eyes dart to the locked door. “Then he’ll be transferred on the 31st to Interpol.”

“Well, we’d best get to it,” M says, nodding to the interrogators coming into the room. “Good work, 006, 007. And Q Branch, of course.” To Jean-Michael he says, “I hope your stay with us isn’t too unpleasant,” as he starts to walk away, with James and Alec in tow.

“I, on the other hand, wish you all the joy of a worm,” Q says, taking a seat to observe the interrogation.

It goes well. The man is apparently unused to hardship, and breaks quickly, giving Q enough intelligence to thwart no fewer than four plots on British soil, and several in allies’ territories. The Koln bomb is intercepted as it’s being delivered to a stadium, and their ties with Germany are strengthened.

Yes, all in all, a successful mission. All on the up and up. Except that Q doesn’t leave, doesn’t stop watching their captive, checks the surveillance and locks constantly. And he has that frantic look again, despite the mission being essentially over. He still has that desperate edge of a man about to face a demon. So as Q watches the interrogation, James watches Q.

The man is careful, there’s no doubt about it. Maddeningly thorough and diligent, but James finally gets his break late in the afternoon of the 30th. Q is called by M to join him in a meeting with the PM to explain how they were able to thwart the attacks on British soil, and he can’t refuse a call like that. It gives James the chance to check the security measures Q has been meddling with on and off. And sure enough, they’ve changed. Whereas the door should only open using dual authentication of two -6 members with a level III clearance, it can now be overridden by Q alone. Whereas Boudin was originally scheduled to be moved at noon on the 31st, Q has moved it to 3 a.m. When no one else will be around.

He’s made some kind of deal, James is sure. Something that will get him killed or imprisoned, and James can’t allow that. He can’t allow Q to go down a traitor. The betrayal he feels is nothing compared to what the loss of Q would be. He’s devastated, either way, so he may as well make sure they both have their honor intact when Q realizes the tables have turned on him. Who knows, perhaps Q will even come to his senses, realize that James is _helping_ him, and go to M with whatever is being held over him. Surely, with the full might of MI6 behind him, he can take on the Hyde Park woman or whoever else has Q under their thumb.

He swipes a tablet from Q Branch that R uses to track the smart-blood. Alec is at home, and Q is at Downing Street. He checks the schedule of Q’s door, which he can now understand thanks to his months of loitering in Q Branch, and confirms Q isn’t expected back that day. Not until the transfer.

Feeling sick, he makes the call, claiming Q sent him a message that they were done with their captive. The prisoner is transferred under the surprised but watchful eye of R, and when it’s all done, James finds a chair and sits by the empty cell in the dark, ignoring his phone.

At one a.m., the door snicks open and quiet footfalls creep toward the cell, which is illuminated from within by a single bulb, and clearly empty.

“Hello Thomas,” James says, stepping into the glow of the light, watching Tom’s face twist in disbelief.

“James?”

“Enjoy your chat with the PM?”

“Where is he, James?”

“Enroute to Interpol. We were done with him.”

“ _I_ wasn’t done with him,” Q insists. “Bring him back!”

“It’s too late for that. And it’s for the best. Better than you going down a traitor; better than you going to _prison_.”

“You have no idea what you’ve done.” Tears are welling in Q’s eyes, and he looks...  _panicked_.   “She’ll come for you, and she’ll keep me away because she _knows_ , and she _can’t_ have you! She can’t! Oh god! There’s no time. I’m out of _time._ ”

Q grips a console to steady himself. He’s completely white… _deathly_ white. And for the first time since he made his decision, James doubts his choice.

“It’s okay… I’ll fix this. You’ll be okay. Here, take this.” Q presses an iron key into James’ hand. “Go to my house and stay there until you hear from me. Don’t come in tomorrow. Call in sick. Stay in my house and don’t open the door for anyone but me. _Promise me!_ ”

This is not the reaction James was expecting.

“Surely if someone is coming after me, MI6 is the safest place to—”

“Steel and glass and aluminum,” Q spats disdainfully. “None of it will keep her out. Go to my house. I love you; she can’t have you. Promise!”

“I promise,” James answers, baffled.

“Go now, before she knows. I’ll fix this.”

“And then you’ll come back?” James asks.

Q nods, but… it feels a lie. “Look for me before sunset,” he finally answers. And then he kisses James, long and passionately, sighing and tasting his lips as he pulls away. “Now go. The gate in the garage door will accept your thumbprint, but you’ll have to park on the street… just block the driveway. It doesn’t matter anymore.”

James hesitates. “I’m sure if we go to M—”

“James, _please_.”

James leaves, not at all sure what happened. He finds parking on the street and lets himself into Q’s garage and into the house, locking the iron safety bolt. He looks around, feeling the emptiness of the house without Q’s presence. He’s always loved this house, but it feels very different without the wry laugh of its master.

He starts a fire in the fireplace to ward off the autumn chill seeping through the walls. He pours himself a drink, turns on music, and then turns it back off again. He won’t try to sleep. He knows better than to think he will. He idly peruses Q’s library, dragging his finger along the spines of the books as he sips his scotch and tries to tamp down the dread building in his stomach. He comes across the tiny portrait again and picks it up.

It doesn’t just _resemble_ Q. It _is_ Q! Same floppy fringe, same mole on his cheek… the mole he’s drawn his own lips across often enough to recognize _anywhere_. He peers at the brushwork, closely, trying to determine if it’s a replica or some Renaissance Faire novelty gift. But the paint is finely worked and yellowed with age.

It can’t be. It _can’t_. Yet here it is.

James starts going through the room methodically, peering at every painting, opening every book — every history book at least. It takes hours, but he has nothing to do but drive himself crazy with regret anyway, feeling every hour of Q’s absence like a chain on his neck. By the time the sun is up, he’s found more than ten images of Q: in paintings wearing robes, in etchings wearing long coats and top hats, old black-and-white photos in books of Q in a WWI uniform — and no wonder he recognized the symbols that started popping up on flyers for secret societies back then. There’s a glossy photo in a drawer of him in a WWII uniform. There’s a faded color photograph of Q standing arm in arm with David Bowie, both wearing ridiculous bell bottoms. A whole life… dozens of lives, documented in this little house. Upstairs he finds more, larger portraits draped in cloth, photo albums stuffed with 100-year old pictures. Paintings of other people, no doubt dear to Thomas. James wonders how many of _them_ betrayed him so thoroughly.

James collects all the images of Q, lays them out on the small table downstairs, and pours himself another scotch. There’s far too much here for it to be a prank or a hoax, but he has no idea what to make of it. He eyes the shelf full of physics books on multidimensional… whatever. He has no patience for it, can’t wrap his head around it, but there’re dozens of pairs of eyes looking up at him, pleading with him to suss it out.

And one feline pair, looking distinctly aloof.

“Well, hullo. You must be one of the famous mousers.” James says, holding out a hand to be sniffed. “Good job. I’ve been all over the house and haven’t seen a single sign of a rodent.”

The petite black cat blinks her green eyes at him but otherwise doesn’t react.

“Well, keep me company while I wait for him, will you?”

She looks entirely unimpressed, and James can’t blame her. He’s clearly out of his depth. He sits in the club chair sipping his drink and praying to gods he doesn’t believe in that he hasn’t made the worst mistake of his life.

He falls asleep swearing he can hear horses, and wakes to afternoon sun, a cat on his lap, and a knock at the door.

He rushes up, dislodging the now upset cat — sorry, puss — and bolts for the door, remembering to check who it is before opening it.

Thomas looks exhausted. He’s left his computer bag somewhere and is just carrying a thick legal-sized envelope. He quickly comes in and locks the door behind him, and lets James pull him into a fierce embrace.

“It’s done,” Tom says wearily, sinking into James. “Or it will be. I have a few hours. But you’ll be safe.”

James kisses him and tastes unfathomable sorrow.

“I’m sorry, I should have trusted you.”

“It’s done,” Tom repeats. “And I wasn’t acting in a trustworthy manner,” he adds, motioning to the table. He sighs, taking in the collection James' has compiled. “I imagine you have questions.”

“Hmmm. Scotch?” James asks, because god knows he’s going to want one for this conversation.  He's torn between needing answers right _now_ and needing to comfort Tom.

“Maybe later. Tea?”

“Coming up,” James says.

When he returns with the tea, Tom is thumbing through the images. “Ta,” he says as he accepts the cup, making a pleased sound and savoring the familiar aroma. “You make it perfectly.”

“Took me long enough," James says, because truly, this is not a domestic skill that came naturally to him.  He wishes for a moment that they could just be domestic, but the pile of images sits between them.

Tom sits and takes a sip, shifting the portraits around, tracing them with his fingers. “It’s going to sound crazy,” he warns.

“I checked the garage for a TARDIS earlier. Crazy I’m ready for.”

Tom huffs a laugh. “No time travel, except very slowly in the usual direction.”

James takes a seat across the table, somewhat relieved. “Hmmm. Inter-dimension alien?” James tries, nodding at the physics book.

“I was born human. Not far from here, actually.”  Tom wraps both hands around his teacup, as if trying to absorb its heat.

“When?” James is bold enough to ask.

“Year of our Lord 1586. Alexander Thomas Cooke, at your service. I apprenticed with Lord Chamberlain's Men starting in starting in 1597, right here in Shoreditch.”

James shakes his head incredulously. “The Shakespeare players?”

Tom nods. “Hmmm. I’m in Wikipedia; you can look me up. They apprenticed young, lithe boys to play the women’s parts. I acted with them from, what? 1605? Until my ‘death’. That’s when she collected me.”

“The..." James tries to imagine beings roaming Britain for more than 400 years.  "The woman from Hyde Park?”

Tom nods again. “I got ill when we were touring... somewhere down near Bath. Medicine wasn’t great back then, nor sanitation. I’d fallen behind the caravan, fallen from my horse, and she found me.”

“And she is?” Bond braces himself for the answer.

Tom fiddles with his cup. “You’re most likely to know her as the Queen of the Faerie, though she does have other names.”

He has been so focused on science or science fiction... new stories.  But this story was _old_.  “The… The Faerie Queen. Like in _Tam Lin_?”

“Oh good, you know it."  Tom looks genuinely relieved.  "Just so. With the Slaugh and—”

“And Janet fair.”

“Aye. God, that pissed her off."  Tom shakes his head, remembering. "It was a bit before my time, but it was still the talk of the Slaugh… the Host… her entourage on horseback: how Tam Lin found a loophole and got out. The next three tithes were called Janet, just in case anyone was unclear regarding the _depth_ of her ire. And they were still talking about it when I joined, some 80 years later.

“At first it seemed brilliant. I wasn’t ready to die, and… you just never consider the cost in that moment. I jumped on the offer, believing it free. But after my first few tithes, I understood. It eats at your humanity. I...I railed a bit. I’d already started going by Thomas instead of Alexander. We went abroad for a bit, and when we came back to Shoreditch, I bought this place and changed my last name to Lane, just to piss her off.”

“Tom Lane?"  James can't help but smile. "You baited a supernatural creature?” he asks, wishing he could really laugh about it.

“I was a cocky little shite,” Tom admits. “But I started helping her find appropriate tithes. I wasn’t so far gone as the others. Still felt my humanity and some sort of moral compass. I went looking for people who were particularly heinous, whom the world would be better without.”

“Like Jean-Michael Boudin,” James guesses.

“Just so.”

“So, he was meant to be this year’s tithe.” James' eyes widen as he catches on. “And I let him go. Which means…”

Tom sighs again. “She’s had her eye on you since you were a child. I don’t know if you remember.”

Oh... _Oh!_   “I dream about it,” James admits. “I wasn’t sure if it was real or not.”

“Yeah, she has that effect on people. It’s the glamour.”  Tom takes another sip of his tea, as if this conversation were completely ordinary.

But James feels several pieces of the puzzle fall into place.  “So, you were one of the riders in my dream. All this time.” James can see him clearly now, all the way to the right, in a high collar and billowing cloak. Why could he never see it so clearly before?

“I’ve kept her off of you for decades. I have no idea why she latched onto you. You were just a boy. And I’ve grown numb over the years, just like the others, despite my efforts to stay engaged in humanity, but even as bad as I got, I knew _that_ was wrong. Knew a child who had just stumbled upon the wrong place at the wrong time didn’t deserve an eternity of… whatever she sends people to. I found her others. And now…” He nods to himself, eyes unfocused. “Now she’ll never be able to hurt you.”

“But if Jean-Michael was the tithe, and I let him go, but I’m safe… No. Thomas, _no!”_ James recoils from the only logical conclusion. “You’re going to let her feed you to _Hell_?”

Tom tilts his head in consideration.  “The hunger she feeds is older than any religion of man. But sure, that’s as good a name as any.”

“No,” James repeats. “There’s got to be another way.”

Tom sighs and leans forward, elbows resting on the table. “James, I’ve lived a long time. Centuries. Long, interminable centuries," he sighs, picking up a random portrait and tossing it aside.  "And it was all _pointless_ until this year. Until you kissed me on Old Street and it was as if I’d awoken from a half-dream. I went to her and offered myself in exchange for you — not just this time, but _ever_. The whole Host bore witness. She’s bound to it. So, if this is how I end, protecting the man I love in perpetuity… so be it. There are worse ways to go. I agreed to come easily.”

James is horrified. “ _I_ didn’t agree. I _don’t_ agree. Why do I have to lose _you?_ What am I supposed to do without _you_? _”_

Tom puts the last of his tea on the table and goes to James, kissing him. “You’re supposed to make my last hours on earth exceptional, as you’ve made my last year. I have not felt so alive in four hundred years, and I’m so grateful. You’ll make love to me and kiss me goodbye and let me go, and revel in the beauty of your mortal life. And you’ll take this,” he says, handing the envelope he walked in with to James. “In three days time you’ll report me missing, and when the time comes you’ll take this to my solicitor. I’ve made you a trustee of my company. You’ll become sole owner when I’m gone. Everything that’s mine will be yours. Including Skyfall Lodge, by the way. I purchased it when you were “dead” and had it rebuilt after the fire.”

“Skyfall was purchased by a company,”

“Yes, Lane Holdings, LLC. Of which you’re now a trustee.”

James opens the envelope and glances through the documents. “You’re wealthy. Why are you Quartermaster?”

“We all need our hobbies,” Tom quips, but his expression is serious. “When faced with so much _time_ , one looks for ways to fill it.  Learning instruments," he says, motioning to the piano, "or physics.  Or _computers_. Otherwise, you're in for an eternity of naval-gazing.  I like being Quartermaster. I’ve felt useful, and it seemed a good place to hunt for tithes. And meet interesting people, as it turns out.”

“Tom,” James pleads, setting the paperwork down and clutching at him, pulling him close, kissing him hard. “There _has_ to be another way.”

“There isn’t. It’s done. Don’t let’s fight in my last hours. Help me feel alive. Please.”

James can’t refuse him. They make love in Tom’s bed, pulling as much pleasure from each other as they can. It’s desperate and beautiful and agonizing. Afterward, Tom dresses in black.

“Don’t go,” James pleads.

“If I don’t, she’ll take both of us.”

“I don’t care.”

“Oh, but love, I _do_. Let me go, James. How many times have I sent you into danger for the greater good? Now I send myself.”

“When you send me, there’s always a good chance I’ll come back.”

“There’s always a chance,” Tom acknowledges. “It’s not always a good one.”

That’s true, James supposes.

He shakes his head, still railing against Q’s resignation. “When?”

“Midnight,” Tom says calmly. “When the veil is thinnest, across the creek and to the highest peak, where the moon shines brightest. But there are preparations. I need to go. Stay locked behind the iron until morning, just in case. Promise me.”

James is crying, fighting back tears like he did as a child, but Tom is calm. “I love you,” he says one last time against James’ lips, and he’s gone.

The silence he leaves in his wake is deafening.

James… can’t catch his breath. He can’t breathe, he just… He just…

He’s on the floor, gasping. Despair rips through him, as it has so many times in his life. But none of them matter. None of it matters. He has no idea what to do.

Then he sees the books. All those _books_. It must be there.

_Tam Lin found a loophole and got out._

He’s knocking tomes off the shelves, searching. He finds Spenser’s _Faerie Queene_ — which is, ironically, not about a faerie at all. He finds poems and histories and everything _but…_

He’s an idiot. So _stupid_! He grabs his phone.

“Siri, recite the Scottish ballad, _Tam Lin_.”

He listens. _Really listens_. And when it’s done, he grabs the thickest blanket he can find — plus a handful of spares — and the tablet he nicked off R that allows him to track Q’s smart-blood, thrilled that the boffin’s been too busy to disable it.

He’s no pregnant, bonny lass, but this is the best hope he has. He unlocks the iron bolt, swearing that one way or another, it will be the last time he breaks a promise to Tom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, special thanks to both Nicholas Hillard (deceased) and @10kiaoi for the fic inspiration and the lovely art to include for the readers. The whole story of how I came to have an Elizabethan Portrait of Q can be found here: https://ato-the-bean.tumblr.com/post/179627816885/authors-note-on-researching-a-price-most.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	17. Autumn, Part 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for going on this journey with me. Thanks to Cas and Ducky for the fabulous hand holding and beta work, especially in helping suss out whether the clues were too much, too little, or just right (the Goldilocks theory of mystery writing). It's been so fun, in part, because they were coming along for the ride with me. And thanks to all the readers who motivated me with their comments. I would grin for hours thinking about some of them...

 

James puts the spare blankets in the boot of his car, along with a bottle of scotch. He sets the tablet on the dash and navigates north and west, surprised at how close such an untamed, dark place can be. He parks near the east entrance. Clothed in black and carrying the largest, thickest of the blankets, he slinks across the heathered moor and park, which is eerily wild in the moonlight, despite the city skyline in the distance.

He should have worn more clothing. A mist is rising like the dead, and tree branches cut through the eerie glow like scars on flesh. James can almost believe that some force can reach out and claim Tom tonight… reach through the multiverse and grasp a mortal.

Well, not if James grasps him first.

He looks at the map on the tablet: Q is located by the stables. A creek cuts through Hampstead Heath. The highest point boasts a manor — probably not the best place for a human sacrifice — but to the east, almost as high, lies a heather-covered hill. The path that leads to it winds through a thick copse and crosses the creek at a wooden bridge. That will be the best cover, both visually with the trees and in terms of sound and smell: he doesn’t want the horses tipping off their riders until he’s ready.

He lies in wait at the base of a tree where he has a view of the path but is largely concealed by vegetation. The creek burbles and the winds blow the rushes, making James almost feel the park itself is whispering and waiting too, though he’s not sure whether its intent would be to help or hinder. His legs cramp and his back aches, but he waits, still as death, going over in his mind what to do, when to jump, what to say. What he’s seen over the last year but couldn’t make sense of, and how it all falls into place now that he has this one, crucial piece of information.

It’s cold — as cold as he remembers that night on the moors being — and interminable until suddenly it’s not. A spike of adrenaline flashes through him as riders emerge from the mist about 300 yards away. First comes a grey mare, ghostly, with a pale, silk-clad woman abreast, her silver cloak gleaming in the moonlight. Behind her twelve riders on black steeds trail single-file, all impassive and unfocused… as if in a daze. Near the back of the line comes the thirteenth rider: dressed in pale silk and upon a pure white mare sits Thomas.

James lets the riders go past his hiding place, one by one, poised to jump, blanket ready, until Tom’s horse comes even with his tree. He springs up, grasping Tom by both hands and pulling him down off the horse, breaking his fall with his own body. A ripple of soft surprise travels through the line of riders as James gets Tom to his feet and wraps him tightly in the blanket, nearly swaddling his arms against his body and winding the cloth round and round. Tom is blinking his surprise, almost as if awakening from a trance. When he focuses on James’ face his eyes widen and he smiles, and James gathers his wrapped form in his arms.

“Don’t let go,” Tom whispers.

“Never,” answers James.

The Queen approaches on her grey, otherworldly mount.

“What is the meaning of this?” she hisses. “Who are you?”

James tightens his hold on Q and says, “Thomas is mine, you can’t have him. Whatever Duty you’re meant to pay in exchange for your time here, it’s too dear. I deny you. My name is James."  He pauses, and then can't resist adding, "That’s the male version of Janet, in case you weren’t aware.”

Her eyes flash, and Tom sputters in surprise. “Cheeky shite,” he whispers.

“That’s _your_ cheeky shite,” James whispers back.

She fixes them both with an icy glare, and then Q is arching in pain, writhing against James hold and morphing into—

A bear, with snapping jaws and terrible claws. James ducks away from a bite, but can feel his legs sliced open by sharp hind claws thrashing for freedom. He cries out and rotates Tom in his arms until he’s facing away and the lunging, snapping bites face the Host. They watch impassively, though their mounts whinny and shy away from the beast.

The Queen glowers at James and waves her hand. Tom morphs again into a huge bird, it’s nimble neck twisting and pecking toward James’ face, trying to gouge his eyes. James dodges, terrified, but can’t get away from the sharp beak. He won’t let go, though, he won’t let her win. So he gets closer, burying his face in the soft feathers that feel remarkably like Q’s curls and smell of his aftershave. Comforting, despite the squawks and attacks.

Thwarted, the Queen tries again, and James is suddenly holding a nest of writhing, biting snakes. He scoops up the end of the blanket so none escape and cries out as fangs find his hands again and again — death by a thousand stabs wounds. He manages to gather up the two ends and close them against each other, glaring back at her as if to say, “Is that all you’ve got?”

No, it’s not. The blanket bursts into flame, engulfing Thomas and searing James, and it’s all he can do to not throw it to the ground. He can feel his skin slough off his body, the flames eat at his core. They’re going to die. They’re both going to die, and all he can hear is his own screams.

He wraps his legs around the fiery pyre that was Thomas and falls backward, pulling them both to the ground and rolling until he feels the cool rushes and icy water. He pushes them as deep as he can, feeling the cold soothe his body and clear his senses… and becomes suddenly aware of the weight in his arms. No longer hot ether, Tom is back and being held below the water.

James surges up, clearing the surface and dragging a gasping Tom to shore, soaked and hunched, but otherwise unharmed. Both of them are whole and hale, though Tom is now naked as they day he was born. James stands them up and wraps the blanket and his arms around Tom again, looking defiantly at the Queen.

She stares at them for a long while as her Host closes ranks and watches on.

“There will be two, next time,” she announces.

“Aye, two,” Tom croaks. “But they won’t be us. You gave your word before the entire Slaugh. He is safe. And I can’t be called twice.”

“You gave your word that you would not tell him the tale!” she cries. It sounds like shattering glass.

“I didn’t. I swear.”

“Queen of Elphame,” James interrupts. “You’ve known I was Scottish since I was eight years old. Did you really think I wouldn’t know the story of _Tam Lin_? Did you think I wouldn’t notice that the only times he couldn’t be with me were on Imbolc or Beltane? That he came back smelling of bonfires? That he marked his calendar in _runes_? He broke no promise. You just don’t hide as well as you think you do.”

Her disdain chills him to the bone, and for a long moment, he thinks perhaps he's pushed her too far.  But she relents. Looking at Q, she announces, “Begone! I release thee!”

She turns her steed and gallops back down the path, the way she came, cloak flashing in the moonlight. The Host follows more slowly, acknowledging Tom in turn as they filter past. They look… their expressions are too impassive to call it dread, but James suspects that though she can’t take this out on the two of them, the other riders are not invulnerable to her wrath.

As the last rider canters off, Tom slumps against him, shivering.

“Is that it?” James asks, still expecting some onslaught.

“Aye. It’s past midnight. Too late for another offering. The next seven years will be hard for them all. Whatever it is she owes duty to, it doesn’t like skipped payments.”

His teeth are chattering hard enough that James can barely understand him. “So, it’s safe to loosen the blanket? You aren’t going to claw my eyes out?”

“It’s safe,” Tom assures him. “And I barely have the energy to stand.” Which becomes clear when Tom half collapses against him.

“Then I’ll carry you,” James answers, lifting Tom in his arms. His own knees are weak with relief, but it’s no good saving Tom from some interdimensional hell only to let him freeze to death. If he can die… James is still unclear on what rules apply to him. “The car isn’t far.”

Tom drifts in and out of consciousness as James carries him: drifting off, startling awake and struggling against James’ hold, only to realize he’s safe and sighing and sinking back into the embrace. When they reach the car, James peels off the sopping blanket and leaves it in the carpark, wraps Tom up in all the dry blankets from the boot, settles him in the passenger seat, and sets the car heat to high.

Tom's lips are blue-tinged and he’s still pale, but his chattering slows as they drive. He stays quiet, too exhausted to speak. James drives them back to Shoreditch, back to Tom’s home, and lets them into the garage, Tom swaying on his feet, fumbling his steps. When they enter the house, he finally makes a noise.

“What happened here?” he asks, stepping over the scattered books, pulling his blanket around himself more tightly.

“Research. I’ll clean it up in the morning. Come on, into the bath with you. You’re still too cold, and I don’t even know how to triage shapeshifting injuries.”

Q huffs a laugh. “Or psychic burn scars. How does one treat those?”

James looks at his hands. “They don’t seem to be bothering me.”

He fills the tub with steaming water and helps get Q in. He washes the creek muck out of Tom’s curls, pleased to see some pink return to his cheeks.

“You okay?” he asks as drags as sponge along Tom’s shoulders.

“Hmmm. Tired, but otherwise, good. Possibly the best I’ve been in… since I can remember. I think… I think I can make _plans_. Beyond finding the next tithe. That’s… that’s so strange. How are you? I’m not the one that had his universe expanded so abruptly.”

James huffs a laugh. “I grew up with Kincade’s wife telling me stories of Brownies and Glastigs… a stuck-up faerie’s no big deal.”

“A stuck-up—” Q laughs. And laughs. And _laughs._ Until James is laughing, too.

“Come on, you get in, too,” Tom finally says, wiping his eyes.

“There’s hardly room. We’ll need to remodel.”

“We will. We’ll _plan_ it,” Tom says, as if feeling the words in his mouth for the first time. “Come in anyway. You’re cold, too.”

It’s a tight fit, but they manage, snuggled together with the warm water lapping on their skin, arms around each other.

“I can’t believe you came for me,” Tom whispers against his chest.

“I love you,” James says simply, realizing it may be the first time he’s given it voice.

Tom freezes. “You do,” he says, incredulously. “You love me.”

“And you love me,” James says, confident it’s true because unlike him, Q has been generous with his words.

“Aye, I do,” Tom confirms. “Well, that’s tidy.”

James huffs a laugh and hugs him more tightly.

“It is. Except for the bit about you not aging and me already feeling old. A small concern, compared with what we’ve been up against, but I’m still wrapping my head around life with an immortal.”

“But I’m not,” Q says, lifting his head from James’ chest to look at him. “She released me from the Slaugh. I’m no longer unmoored from time. I may be 400 years more experienced than you, but I’m also only 28, and completely mortal.” He hums, considering the implications. “I expect you and Alec may turn me grey yet.”

Joy suffuses James’ mind. “Truly?”

“I think so.”

James strokes the hair at Q’s temple. “I’d be honored to be the one who gets to watch silver streak through your curls.”

Thomas kisses him. “And be the cause of it?”

“And very likely be the cause of it,” James acknowledges.

“Sounds perfect. Now, take me to bed. I feel like celebrating.”

James can hardly argue with an order like that.

 

-fin-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Ballad of Tam Lin is well worth the read. I've borrowed heavily from it and a retelling by Pamela Dean (which is fabulous). Many of the poems in here are cited properly or linked to full versions, but the one at the beginning of Spring isn't real. Alexander Cooke was, and he really did act in Shakespeare's company, often performing the female roles, but to my knowledge, he never wrote a poem after his (unfortunately probably very real) death in 1614. That was just my lame attempt at copying Sir Walter Raleigh's style and offering another clue tying Q to that part of history. St. Leonard's Church in Shoreditch is also real and is the burial location of many Shakespearian players, including James Burbage. Q decides to settle there in part to maintain his ties to his "real" life. The alternate, earlier location a few blocks away on Old Street is fictitious, as is the old rectory house Q inhabits in this story. There are walls such as the one described, with garage doors built into it for the houses behind, in neighborhoods north of Shoreditch. So I mashed some things together to make Q's neighborhood work for my story. Sadly, Lulu and her pub are also fictitious, but I've seen half-timber pubs pressed up against modern buildings in London and other towns, and I find it as charming as Q does.
> 
> I had thoughts of writing an epilogue where some of these details would come out, but it feels like Q and Bond have said what they needed to say, and their story is finished. Or at least the part I need to tell you is finished. I'm sure you can imagine for yourselves exactly how James and Q make each other grey and give each other laugh lines. 
> 
> Thank you all so much for reading. It's been a very fun adventure for me. And happy new year!


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